Fred's Thoughts and History

A Dialog in the Dark Experience

2012-01-21T11:51:00.006+01:00

On a recent trip to the USA, I had a somewhat unique experience in Atlanta. My son's wife had arranged for us to go to Dialog in the Dark near the downtown area. I have since learned that similar experiences are available in New York City, Moscow, two spots in Italy, several in Germany, and in Vienna. In fact there are places all over the world where one can visit a dialog site. I should say experience because we saw absolutely nothing at all!

On a beautiful day at Atlantic Station in Atlanta, we all trooped into a large waiting room and presented our tickets. Excursions begin about every half hour, and the whole experience lasts about 45 minutes. First, we were given canes like blind people use and told how to use them. Then a sighted guide took about 10 of us in a room where we were seated on cubes of light in front of a metal railing about 3 feet high. He explained that the lights would slowly dim into total darknes. If anyone had a feeling of claustrophobia, they were to say so, and they would be taken out of the room. It turns out that several of the group availed themselves of this option.

The remainder of us were told to follow our guide's voice. She was a new person than the man who brought us in the room before the lights went out. She had been blind for some years due to early onset glaucoma. She had a pleasant voice, and we all tentatively worked our way to it. She seemed to hear where we were. We then followed her to another room where it became evident that we were in a park, walking on grass, could feel a stone wall that was wet, and hear a brook with a waterfall. We then crossed a bridge, and found ourselves in a grocery store. On my left, I could feel different vegetables and fruits in a produce case but see nothing. Then we went through canned goods and wound up at a checkout line. The lady explained how grocery stores have people available to help blind people orient themselves. Next, came a boat ride! We carefully entered what seemed to be a boat and sat down. The water sounds and the rocking of the boat were realistic. Next, we stood on a curb and listened to the sounds of a busy street before crossing it.

After crossing the street, we next entered the cafe where we stood at the counter and ordered the drinks. Our guide (now bartender) knew the drinks by the shapes. She could not tell between a diet coke and a regular coke since they are in the same shape container. We paid with bills, and she made change. We knew ahead of time to have 0ne dollar bills in a certain pocket, so that was not a problem. While we drank, we were encouraged to ask her questions about being sightless.

Some things that I learned:

Persons born sightless have no memory of colors. Think about describing the color red to someone who had never seen the color red. Probably good to have a sighted person help these folks with wardrobe choices.

Persons with sight who become blind, all have a photo memory of a color ingrained in their brains.

Sightless people, in this day and time, have learned to travel, shop, and get around in cities by various means. Not the least of these is having a place for everything in their homes, putting canned goods marked with rubber bands, paper clips, etc. in order in their cabinets. Having markers on socks, etc.

Textures can tell one a lot about what things are. Restaurants serve sightless people with instructions as to where on the clock their foods are on their plates.

By the time our tour was finished, I almost felt that I could see things in my mind's eye without the use of light. I was reminded of a sightless man that I see getting on a train in Luzern. He counts stops until he knows where to get off. Usually there are people he knows at the same stop, so I know he would have help if needed.

An unexpected result of our tour was the loss of a feeling of personal space. It was almost an hour of walking into other people, touching them with hands, feet, and cane, and generally intruding on other's space. As we began to leave the bar, a young lady told me that she was going to place her hand on my back and let me lead her to the door. We made our exit, but I never saw her.

Sightless people may have a blank stare, but they are thinking all the time.

Big Boys and Cry Babies

2011-12-19T19:48:00.007+01:00

The title would suggest that there are two types here. At this point, I can tell you that they can be one and the same. I know because I am both.

My dad was of the generation that believed "big boys" do not cry. I grew up in his image. Now, he was a long way from being a hard hearted John Wayne type, but men did not cry in his world. His mother outlived him, but I do recall seeing him red eyed (no tears) when his father died. So, that was the way I grew up. My mom would cry at the drop of a hat but not him. When I cried, as a child, and he saw me, he would just tell me to shut off the waterworks and be a "big boy". He had far better judgement than to say that to my mother. My dad loved me. I am sure that he thought that he was making me a man, and he did. When he died, I sat by my mom and never let a tear grace my eye. I did have this strange tightening in my throat though. He would have been proud.

Almost sixty years later, I find that things have changed. How and just when, I do not know. I do know that somewhere along the way, change occurred. These days, I can tear up at a sad event without a problem. Just why, I have no clue. Maybe enough sad things have happened, so I cannot help it. Most of my life has been exceptionally happy, but we all have sad things in our lives. I have certainly seen plenty of sadness in other people's lives. Maybe we all have a limit to what we can experience and witness before we lose our "big boy" mentality.

Maybe with birthdays we lose some of our inhibitions. I do know that age can decrease the frontal parts of the brain that control emotions. I have seen a lot of stroke victims who have emotional lability as part of their deficit. Some people cry at inappropriate times with other conditions. Maybe it is a combination of upbringing, emotional experience, and mental function. All I know is that it is as it is. I don't worry a bit about it.

Machine Gun Kelly and My Pop

2011-12-11T11:39:00.005+01:00

My dad grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. He went to Lenox Elementary School from about 1909 and Central High School until about 1921. I say "about" because he was born in mid-December 1902, so I count 1903 as his first year for school age purposes. Anyway, at Central, in one of his classes (Chemistry, I think because he related this to me many years ago), he sat behind a boy who became George "Machine Gun" Kelly. I once asked my dad what this guy was like. He told me that he was, even then, sort of a bum. He was not good in school, not in class a lot, etc.

If you don't know Machine Gun Kelly, the link above will tell you about him. I am glad the he and my dad never became real buddies.

Running, Then and Now

2011-12-09T14:00:00.000+01:00

First, for those that don't know me, I am approaching the age of dirt. I like that, when other choices are considered. I do have a few more senior friends than me (they know who they are). The most senior is 92. As far as I know he is still a walker.

In 1969, I accepted the best deal that I ever got from the federal government and wound up in the Neurosurgery Department of a naval hospital in Boston, MA. I lived in Peabody, MA (pronounced "PEA body" instead of the famous Memphis hotel, "The pea BODY"). We lived in an apartment complex know as Northshore Gardens. Now, the Gaaaaardens, as a Bostonese would say, was nice enough. Nice paved streets and hills were at the front door.

For some reason (I told you I was old), I put on a pair of basketball shoes and started to run these hills. The only time you saw any shoe remotely like a running shoe was at a track meet. There were a lot of military guys staying in shape out there in the dark every morning. I did not see them a lot, since it was dark. I could hear them breathing, so I knew they were there. I didn't realize it then, but those basketball shoes were a good training aid. Kind of like running with lead shoes. Anyway, this little bit of early morning running did not get me hooked.

When military time was over, I moved all to Alabama to get started with the serious business of making a living. Our first house was close (not too close) to a high school with a quarter mile track. One early morning, I put on the big shoes and started doing track mileage. In summer, there were probably 6-10 guys that would show up during an hour. In winter, you just heard a lot of feet hitting the track and heavy breathing. One occasion really sent me in a new direction. There was an ad in a magazine for a running shoe. They were from France and not cheap. I ordered a pair, put them on, and felt like I was floating when I went for a run. They were way too narrow, and the worst shoes that I ever wore after the basketball footwear. Still, they were the lightest shoes that I had ever had.

Not long after that, I was in Memphis for a day or two and came upon a running shoe store of all things. After trying out a few, I bought a pair. Probably Nikes, but who knows now? I took them home and was partially hooked. Why partially? Because a few weeks later, a friend told me that he found street running much less boring that that on a track. HE WAS RIGHT!! From then on, the only time that I ran on a track was to do interval training. About this time we moved about a block away from the track. I started running in the street, and that was that. I had a regular 7 mile out and back course that was along a nice road to and from an industrial park. It was a good mix of ups and downs. On an early morning, I might see a dozen cars.

So, began my serious life as an amateur runner. I soon acquired a painter's cap, a singlet, and some running shorts. My pride (I think they are still in a box somewhere) was a set of "New Zealand Splits". These were next to nothing in weight and were shorts cut up to the waist band. I had no other equipment. Shoes, sox, shorts, singlet, and cap. I later got a cheappo watch for timing. I do not recall when I first ran in a 10 K race. By this time, the running craze had begun. It was probably a friend who told me about races. I should say definitely, that I was never a competitive racer. I began as a LSD runner (Long slow distance) and stayed with that. I remember a friend telling me that on race day, I would run my best time. This was due to the added adrenalin from the excitement of the event. I thought that he was full of it. I knew my times. He was right. I bested my times always on race day. Not a lot, but it got so that if I had not been a little faster, I would have been very disappointed. I found that the "runner's high" was a real thing. It started at about 4 miles at first, but as my distances increased, it took longer to appear.

One physiological fact for me became quickly evident and guided my run routes always. About 4 miles into any run, I began to get a "colon call". Later with marathons, I always had an enema before race day. I probably did this before 10 Ks too (told you I was old). On my daily runs, I was fortunate to be in a lot of undeveloped property areas with lots of trees. A baggie with some toilet paper in it stuffed in a sock worked fine. It was usually dark anyway.

There was a fledgling group of runners in the area, so I went and met with them on occasion. One night a man came over from an adjacent city as a guest runner. This guy was "Mr. Runner" in Alabama then. We started with a 10 K, and then we talked with each other. I found out that in December of each year, there was a marathon in Huntsville, AL. In those days, there were probably 20 or less marathons in the whole country. Two were in Alabama. Huntsville was the best in many ways. It had more recognition and was relatively flat. I started to train for this in March of 1979 (I think). Training advice for marathons abounds today, but in 1979, there was little to none. The only thing besides increasing milage was to add some intervals once a week. Probably, these were of psychological benefit only. December arrived, and I thought I would give it a try. With an empty colon, I drove over to Huntsville, lined up, and got underway on a very nice and cool day.

Today, a marathon is a lot different. Some have activities that last several days before the run. There are all sorts of shorter runs, exhibits, carbo meals, etc. At my first marathon, I could have gone the evening before for a spaghetti supper, and that was it. I passed on the supper because if carbo loading helps anyone at all, it must be the really fast runners. I was not then, and never was, in that group. In Huntsville, after you finished, you got a hot dog and an orange. Of course, I was excited. I had been over a lot of the course already, and I knew that unless I fell, I would finish. At the end of the day, I could say that I was a marathoner. The race was run. At about 20 miles, I met the "wall". The "wall" is a point where your body has used up all the usual muscle energy sources and shifts over to protein as a source. This is not fun at all. I owe a lot of my will power at that point to a rather large Huntsville policeman standing in the road. He was saying over and over, "You are looking great, and it is only a 10 K to go". At that stage, a 10 K seems like a walk in the park. With a further and slower struggle, I made it to the end. I had reached my goal of under 4 hours, had my hot dog (tasted really fine too), and drove back home to soak in a hot tub. Climbing stairs was a challenge for a few days. Going by the book, I skipped a day, and two days later, I ran my regular 7 miles. For a time or two, 7 miles seemed really short.

I continued to run my 35 miles a week and ran in some 10 K races to keep up. Two more Huntsville marathons were in my future. The second one was in the rain, and the only time that I ever got hungry while running any distance. This occurred when I passed a fast food joint. The third and last marathon, I did with a friend who was a first timer. We had made an error in out training, in that we ran a 20 mile course only two weeks before the race. This was not enough time to recover. I ran a few minutes (12 as I recall) over my 4 hours, and I got bored. After that, I stuck with 10 Ks only.

The old knees began to give out, so I retired from running. Three days running and three days crawling around was not worth it.

These days, I am surrounded by runners. Three generations of them and a spouse still pound the pavement in all sorts of races. Equipment abounds. All sorts on improved shoes, orthotics, timing devices, monitors, etc. are a big business. There are even watches with GPS systems built in, so you can find your way home if you are lost. These days, I go as the unofficial photographer, medical support person, general jacket holder, and flunky. If I could run now, I think I would still go with some decent shoes, a singlet, a cap, and my good old New Zealand splits!

A visit to the Onion Market in Bern

2011-11-30T16:45:00.010+01:00

Each fall, there is a big market in Bern right in front of the capitol building and spreading through all the side streets. I had not been to this in years, but this year, there was an American friend here who wanted to see this. The last time I went, it was a cold and messy day, but this trip was going to have beautiful weather, so off we went. Our friend met us in the main station, since he was coming from Zurich. They run special trains to this affair, so it was no surprise that it was covered up with people. This affair usually sells about 50 tons of onions in all fashions. This year, they added about 6 more tons to that figure. There is a real carnival atmosphere on that day. There are onions made into all sorts of wreaths, chains, and doo dads of every sort. There are all sorts of onion and garlic dishes. A vampire would not be happy here.

Of course there is garlic butter bread that is toasted. The small cheese and onion tarts known as Zwiebelkuechen, and lots of spicy Gluhwein. There is no shortage.

Hey! I didn't Think I Had Been THAT Good!

2011-11-30T16:19:00.005+01:00

This morning about ten, the doorbell rang. The mailman had come and gone, so I had no clue as to who it was. I go down and what do I find? Sammiclaus and his two helpers. What did I see otherwise? One of the helpers had a bottle shaped sack in her hand. It was a gift from Sammiclaus. I was wished a Frohe Adventzit and a Happy Christmas by Sammiclaus, who then agreed to having a photo made.

Later, I found the sack to contain a nice bottle of Swiss Dole. It is the custom here for each resident over the age of 70 to receive a bottle of wine when Sammiclaus comes each Advent season. I believe that each "round" age year (70,80,90, etc.) you also get a loaf of bread. Tell me that old age doesn't get you any respect!

An Update on "J", a Teenager During WW II

2011-11-24T14:31:00.008+01:00

In April of 2006, I wrote a piece about "J". A lot of people seemed to enjoy this. I know that It was a fun thing for me to do. For the present reader, I would recommend having a look at this now. I always enjoy hearing stories of "J"'s youth and young adulthood in Paris and the areas adjacent during WW II. "J" is 87 years old now but still retains a lot of memories of those times, as a teenager and young woman. I recently had a chance to ask more questions of her.

I have just finished a book entitled "Paris" by Anthony Beevor and his wife, Artemis Cooper. It covers the years between 1944 and 1949. I found a lot of names that I recognized but knew very little about, so I thought of "J". I should say now that she and her husband have both had a share of health problems, and I found her thin and frail but still mentally sharp. Since the last visit with her, we have had an opportunity to visit her old Parisian home in a Paris suburb and could relate to her stories of Jewish neighbors who simply disappeared, the bomb shelter that was in their basement (and remains there today), and the small enclave that was her street. "J" still retains that house, but it will likely pass on for sale after she dies.

It was enlightening and fun to spend an hour or so with her. I started by asking her about Charles de Gaulle and her thoughts about him. From Beevor's book, I had gotten the idea that like him or not, most French people thought of him as a savior and the future of post-war France. Indeed, "J" was a Gaullist of the first order and agreed with me that had it not been for him, France might well have become a communist country. I was surprised to find that "J"'s father, an industrialist, used his factory as a haven for Jews, as well as others, who would have been deported to Nazi camps. By keeping them on as required workers, they were spared scrutiny by the Germans. She said that at first, the tales of concentration camps were not believed, but later it became evident that the stories were true. When the Germans left Paris, there were still a lot of French places, such as Alsace, where military actions took place with the Free French and the Allies fighting together against the Germans.

About this time, after her recovery from her back injury in the OSS "J"'s father wanted her to go to England, where he had business connections, so she spent almost four years in post-war London. In spite of the desolation of blitized city, the young people there had many social events and parties. She had spent some time in England before the fall of France, so she had English as a language already. Apparently, she took one of the last ships back to France before the Germans took the country. She lived in a boarding house in London until another lady invited her to share her apartment. She endured rationing as everyone did, but despite this she had a good experience. Her next journey was, of all places, to Argentina. Her Godmother had properties in that country, so they traveled to South America on a freighter, making many stops on the way. In Argentina, the Godmother's property had been illegally sold to other people, courtesy of a crooked lawyer. This occasioned "J"'s return to Europe.

After all this, she wound up going to Engelberg to get away from the destruction all over Europe. There, she stayed in a hotel owned by her future husband's family, met him, and they have been married over sixty years. They still have an apartment in the village there. She tells me that there are many old photos that she can share with me. I hope to be able to see and scan these for a future blog. To say that "J" has had a historical life is an understatement.

Cleavages, Clefts, and Kilos

2011-10-05T16:02:00.030+02:00

As I begin this, I am in Western Austria in a narrow valley toward the Italian border in a region known as Tirol. We are in a village called Laengenfeld, where there is a spa called The Aqua Dome. Now, ordinarily I am not the least interested in spas, but some friends of ours have been here three or four times. They cannot stop singing its virtues, so I decided to give Barbara a birthday gift of three nights in this hotel/spa. Unlike me, she can sniff out a spa miles away. The trip from Sachseln to the spa goes through the beautiful Arlberg region of Western Austria, so the three hour drive passed quickly. Our spa days began on a Tuesday, so we spent Monday night in a Gaesthaus near the village. That way, we could check in early and have a whole day of activity in the Aqua Dome. I think the words "decadent fitness" best describe the Aqua Dome. It is a sumptuous and elegant hotel with all the amenities one would expect. Having a daughter with a degree in hotel management, elegance in hotels is not an unknown concept for me. It reached a new level when we were upgraded to a suite with a fireplace, and I switched on the flat screen TV to be welcomed by name on the screen. Suffice it to say that this suite was luxury compounded. The philosophy of Aqua Dome seems to be to encourage fitness for those who want it and throw in as much decadence as anybody desires. They seem to do a great job with both entities. As one might expect, I went heavy on the decadent side. Here, I might mention that we are in Germanic Europe here where customs and mores can be a bit different from other places in the world. The brochures and web sites of the Aqua Dome mention that some areas of the spa are "Textilefrei". In English this basically means no clothes or bathing apparel. Where I come from originally, this means "nekkid". Saunas and spa pools are commonly sans clothes in the less puritanical areas of the world. This along with large pools of bubbling thermal spring water, had been an item on my bucket list for some time. I anticipated this with only minor reservations, quickly resolved by our friends who assured me that after five minutes, no one noticed a thing. Of course, I did not drive three hours just to skinny dip with a bunch of people who I never met, but it presented itself as an opportunity that I had not had, even with the neighbors next door to us in Switzerland who have a hot tub. Bathing in a thermal pool and enjoying the variety of saunas sounded good to me. The set up of the hotel was such that movement about between Textilefrei and clothed areas in the bathrobe furnished to each guest was no problem. I was surprised at how easy it became to shed all modesty and inhibitions when people without clothes were in the majority around you. We are all made alike in most ways, and sometimes slight variations can be of interest. There were no Playboy Bunnies seen by me, just natural creations. That all out of the way, food was another consideration, as the pictures below confirm. Breakfast and dinner came with the daily price of the hotel. Both were meals beyond the ordinary to say the least. If one was in a Textilefrei area and wanted one of the meals or a snack, this was not a problem. I saw a few people avail themselves of this in the areas set aside for such. Some had robes on, while others did not. Hot soup in the lap could be a hazard, I suppose. We had meals in the clothed hotel areas. In the main dining room, we were assigned a table for the duration of our stay and got to know our neighbors. The hotel and spa are multilingual, so all sorts of languages can be heard. English is spoken throughout, but as usual in Austria, the locals try to accommodate you if you try another language. Our servers went out of the way to help us along our somewhat primitive ways in German. It was obvious that the employees are happy here. They do a wonderful job and are genuinely happy to see you. English seems to be the common language between locals and those from elsewhere in the world. This is true in Switzerland, so we were not surprised.

Food is a subject close to our hearts. It would be an understatement of the first order to say that we had wonderful meals morning and night at the spa restaurant. I will say here that our photos are mostly of food or outdoor scenes. Carrying a camera into the "Textilefrei" areas did not seem like a good idea. After breakfast, anyone that needs to eat from hunger must have a serious medical problem. For a typical buffet breakfast, one finds analmost indecent array of food. Huge buffet tables of breads, fish, sauces, cereals, meats, fruit and juices, cheeses, and eggs. We agreed that three days of this was about all we could handle without going home in a smock with guilt about gluttony.

My routine became thus, in the morning I spent time in the "Saunawelt" alternating between several different saunas and periods in the two thermal pools. Both pools had alternating changes in the water flows, so one got a massage, as well as, a soak in warm water. At one end of a pool there was a terrace where one could have a drink or snack, in or out of, your robe. Behind that area was an outdoor sunbathing area walled off with hedges. There, one can find a area of snow, if you are so inclined to roll in it after a sauna. About noon, I would pull on some trunks and go to the regular swimming areas. There one could stay under cover or go into one of the three elevated basins. There was a choice of a whirlpool, a salt water pool, or a pool containing a higher level of sulfur. They all had fountains and whirlpool action. Everywhere, one could lean back and see blue skies and alps. A moonlight evening soak was spoiled by the coming clouds. After a day of such delights, one felt very pleasantly fatigued. Not work fatigue, but that fatigue that is such as one feels after a long period of slow running.

After some evening libation (saw no snakes but was on the lookout), it was dinner time. That was never a chore! By ten PM, no one wanted to do anything but sleep, and sleep well.

If this was spa life, number me among its fans. If anyone was serious about spa treatments, there were plenty from which to choose. There was even a 500 calorie menu to order, if you dared do this.

Some of our food pornography is at:

http://tinyurl.com/64pppp9

Normandy 2011

2011-05-10T10:21:00.030+02:00

There is an old saying that "You can't go home again". I believe that is true of most vacations, holidays, etc. of course if it were an infallible truth, I would not live in Switzerland. We just returned from ten days in Normandy that I believe were an exception to that rule also. This may largely be due to Carol and Steve spending six of those days with us, as we all sought things of interest. What follows is what some might call a trip log of our adventures into a time past.

21 April, Thursday

We left home in the early AM, as the dawn was breaking. This trip was to be a first real test of our use of a GPS tracking system, so we listened as our guide, Jill, led us along roads that were at first familiar, but then became unknown. We crossed the Swiss border into France at Basel. As we drove through the Alsatian country, we reached a point where we decided to fore go our point to point instructions to Jill, and let her take us on her own to Saint Quentin. Since we had decided to make this a two day trip to our destination, we had booked a hotel in the city of that name just to be able to say that we had spent a night in Saint Quentin. This was no problem for Jill except for a short stretch just outside of Saint Quentin when some parallel high tension power lines got her a bit bumfuzzled. She recalculated, and we arrived just fine.

Jill, our GPS

The hotel/motel was of interest in itself. It was totally automatic. There was a desk person available for a few hours, but check in, meals ordered, and check out was all done by computer. It wasn't a bad spot for a night.

22 April, Friday.

We were up and away from Saint Quentin after a quickie coffee and croissant breakfast. Jill, our GPS assistant, got us through several rest stops and even more toll booths to Bayeux by noon. The French roads and expressways are very nice. Even though there were places with high volume traffic, the pace rarely slackened. Compared to German autobahns, these were much better in that respect. The tolls seem to be well earned. We arrived at The Dean's Manor on the edge of Bayeux, loaded into our room for the two nights before we can get into the apartment on Sunday, met the Chilcott family members (the colonel, his wife, a son, and several grandchildren who are visiting from England), and then decided to find the Hertz rental location, so we would be familiar with it when Carol and Steve arrive tomorrow afternoon. We went to Arromarche later for a look around. The weather was warm and beautiful, and there were a lot of tourists there.

6th June Restaurant in Arromanches

23 Apr Sat

We were out after a light breakfast at the Manor. We went into the village to meet Elizabeth and Bob Castleman. I had not seen these folks in at least 50 years, and it was by coincidence that our paths crossed at the same time in Normandy. We had a nice two plus hour visit and lunch with them. Then we went to the Bayeux train station to pick up Carol and Steve and went to pick up their rental car. After they got settled in at the manor, we decided to go back to Arromarche, so they could see the lay of the land there. We had dinner there again at the 6 June Restaurant before returning home for the evening.

A bit about Colonel Chilcutt. He was deathly ill in the Caen hospital four years ago when we were here. Today, he says he is better than he has been in years. He is ambulatory, lucid, etc., but I doubt he is as good as before his illness. His demeanor would put some off, but I found him to be very knowledgeable about the D-Day happenings and the logic behind them. He can come over as a demanding host, but if one listens and ignores his bluster, one finds him possessed of a very dry wit. He is 77 years old, and his father landed with the British here on D-Day. He has a map room in a large attic over one of the barns that is packed with wall maps, all sorts of air and beach mockups, and several large picture scrapbooks of D-Day original photos. I hope this collection will find its way to a museum some day.

24 Apr Sun

Out to the Bayeux Cathedral where the other three went to mass, while I cruised the village. The processional at the mass was led by several older men, one of whom carried an American flag. They were obviously WW II veterans. After mass, we had a reservation at La Rapiere. This was a treat and likely, the best meal of the many fine meals on our trip.

At La Rapier

Next, we made our way to the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Arriving in mid-afternoon, we saw a long line into the new visitors center. We bypassed that and enjoyed the new entrance walk way to the cemetery. This spot is, for me, just like going to Arlington National Cemetery in the USA. There were mobs of people, but there is a hush over the whole place. People walk the paths and go into the rows looking at the stones. The place is kept in immaculate condition at USA taxpayer’s expense, but one does not resent a single dollar used for this purpose. A majority of these heroic soldiers died well before thirty years of age, and one marvels at the loss of such potential for our country. Of course, if you take over nine thousand young men in a general population, you will have some misfits. Perhaps the war saved them from that, but it extracted an ultimate price. Keeping one’s eyes dry can be very difficult.

After a supper of snacks, we all packed it in for the night.

Markers at American Cemetery

25 Apr Monday

Monday was a French federal holiday. The big LeClerc supermarket was closed. I had seen a notice in a grocery in the middle of the village that said it would be open. I drove down, found it up and running, and stocked up on some items there. I saw some jars of duck fat. The French cook with it, so I will take one back home to Sachseln with me.

Returning home, we unloaded the groceries and took off for lunch in Port en Bessin. This harbor town was a favorite from the trip four years past. We honed in on our favorite restaurant and had a sumptuous lunch.

A Plateau of Seafood

After a post-prandial stroll around this pretty village, we took off for another D-Day site at a spot down the road called Longues sur Mer.

Longues sur Mer is at a point on the map labeled “Chaos”. It must have been chaotic on D-Day The battery at Longues sur Mer is an impressive group of bunkers that bear testimony that the Germans knew what they were doing when it came to reinforced concrete in their Atlantic Wall. A forward bunker served as a spotting site so the guns behind them could obtain an accurate range. The broad expanse of flat land between that point and the guns surely cost some major casualties to secure.

We left Longues sur Mer and drove a short distance to Pointe du Hoc. This was the site of a fierce battle against the Germans by the rangers of the US Army. Out of about 200 men, 90 were left able to fight after the capture of the area. To see the cliffs that these men negotiated with cables and ladders while being fired upon by the enemy is amazing. The whole area is reminiscent of a golf course with way too many grass bunkers. The “bunkers” are shell craters from the allied bombing and naval fire before and during D-Day. The capture and neutralization of this point eliminated it as a spotter outpost for the German guns firing at both Omaha and Utah Beaches.

26 Apr. Tuesday

Today was exceptional. We drove to Caen about 40 minutes from Bayeux and spent most of the day at the War Memorial Museum. Caen was the scene of some of the heaviest destruction in the Normandy fighting. The city was virtually leveled. This museum has exhibits starting with the end of WW I, going onward to show how the armistice made life intolerable for Germany, and how this led the population to accept Nazi leadership as their only hope for the nation’s survival. The exhibits then go into great detail with WW II, and then even give a good background to the Cold War after the allies defeat of Germany. It was an impressive visit, and even though we thought we were “Museumed out” for the day, we were very close to the Pegasus Bridge. Off we went with our faithful GPS leading.

Pegasus Bridge was the scene of a significant British result at the D-Day landings. It bridged the Caen Canal and was a vital source to protect against German counterattacks. The Brits used glider landings to place troops on the ground there and capture the bridge. The museum at Pegasus is specific to that operation and was a source of interest, since we knew barely anything of this history.

Pegasus Bridge

27 Apr Wed

We had heard that the museum at the new visitor’s center associated with the American Cemetery was not to be missed. The long lines had discouraged us on our initial visit. We tried to be there for the opening and had no problem. The entrance security is much like an airport, hence the line. This site was under construction on our 2007 trip, but I have to say that this is a penultimate museum of which any American can be proud. I am glad we did this in two segments, since the cemetery itself warrants some time in itself.

We then decided to go on a mission to find Brecourt Manor. This was a topic seen best in the Band of Brothers series on TV and DVD. After a bit of convoluted driving, we did find a spot that the GPS said was Brecourt Manor. About all we saw was the barnyard and a bit of the manor. In the barnyard however, we met two young men whose English was better than our French. One guided me across the road, pointed at a pasture with a hedgerow, and said we were welcome to look all we wanted. The pasture was mined, but this time only with cow paddies. We got an up close look at where the men of Easy Company, 506^th Parachute Infantry, 101^st Airborne knocked out the four big guns shelling Utah Beach. Since our visit, I have learned that there is a monument to Easy Company at Brecourt Manor. We missed this, but I’ll bet we were within a few yards of it.

The Hedgerow at Brecourt Manor

Next, we sought Utah Beach. It was low tide, breezy, and practically empty. Extensive construction is underway at the museum, and it was time to look for lunch. Barbara and I had lunch at a beachside spot near Utah Beach in 2007 on the way from St. Mere Eglise to Utah, so we drove a few kilometers in the opposite direction to find it. The Brasserie Normandie was still there, as it had been four years before. We enjoyed it again.

After lunch we made a quick stop in St Mere Eglise and parted the four of us, so Steve and Carol could see the excellent 101st Airborne Museum there. Barbara and I continued onward to the German War Cemetery near La Cambre where 21,000 soldiers, known and unknown, are buried. This is a beautiful and peaceful spot in contrast to all the mayhem that led these soldiers to be buried here.

German Cemetery at La Cambe

28 Apr Thurs

We explored the map room in the top of a barn at Dean’s manor first. One could easily spend a full day here with all the maps, table mockups, and photo books. Students from military schools over the USA, including West Point used to visit this room for tactical instruction.

The Map Room

After the map room, we made our way to Grandcamp Maisy to explore the German battery there only discovered and opened about five years ago. Though well documented in war records, this site was covered over after the war to use for farming. Aerial Photographs studied by a young Englishman showed its presence and it was rediscovered. Today, it is a work in progress, but in the four years since we first saw it, much has been done.

Maisy Battery

Then, guess what? It was lunch time! We went back into the village proper, and after searching a few menus, found our spot. La Belle Mariniere was a great choice. A small room with two brothers, one the chef, and one the waiter. We had an elegant and tasteful lunch with a reasonable price. certainly a spot worth a return!

A fine Meal

After our lunch, we headed back to the manor so Carol and Steve could pack for their return to Paris the next day.

29 Apr Friday

Today's first order of business was to watch the royal wedding on TV and computers. That social obligation out of the way, I took Steve to turn his rental car in. We went to the station with them to catch the train and saw them off. Although it was somewhat gray and later turned into a drizzle, we decided to head for Juno Beach. Jilly got us to Courseulles sur Mer, the village at Juno Beach It reminded me of Arromanches at Gold Beach. The day was not pretty and after a snack and a look around, we made our way back home.

Juno Beach Monument

30 Apr. Sat.

We slept in awhile, then we got the packing underway. We made a last foray into the village to buy some gifts for people back home and had lunch at La Table du Terroir. It was a memorable experience. The last Norman oysters of this trip were as good as always and the absolute best Tripes al mode de Caen that I have ever eaten, bar none. Barbara's appetizer and pollock main dish were much to her pleasure also.

Tripes a la Caen

Now, we have paid our landlady, said our goodbyes to her and the colonel, and plan an early departure for the AM.

Hoarders

2011-03-02T15:20:00.007+01:00

Well, another new thing has entered my life! I can tell you that it would have been the last thing I could have imagined too!

I have long been a fan of the American TV network, A&E, but it has been some months since I looked at any of its material. Now, I find the focus seems to have shifted away from arts, and in my view, it has moved a long way away from entertainment. I was recently exposed to some episodes of "Hoarders". This program can only be described as sad and repulsive. After some time away from the USA, I am at a loss when I see what the public will support and watch.

For those uninitiated in this program, it seems to chronicle the stories of a variety of people afflicted with a disorder causing them to pathologically collect and store a variety of items, both animate and inanimate. The scenes in and about the homes of the people affected are truly spectacular. They are also perverse, disgusting, and filthy. This not a show to watch while eating, or contemplating such. It might serve as a weight control measure, if you watched it enough.

I must admit that for me, it could become a morbid fascination, but only in homeopathic doses. I still think it would be best presented by its own separate channel. Perhaps, something such as The Weird Channel would do.

A few Hours above the "Soup"

2011-02-05T10:44:00.010+01:00

This time of year in CH, we can go for days without seeing the sun. Our house on a lake is 500 meters above sea level. Some times, the fog is so dense that we cannot see across the pasture to our neighbor's house. I like these days. They are fine for books, internet, and napping. Driving is not a problem, so we are free to travel.

Some people cannot tolerate days of no sun. They get "Seasonal Affective Disorder", known as "SAD". Some get really depressed and need to go upwards for some sun. This may mean a few hundred meters or even more. That is why one often sees people at ski areas shedding clothes like they were on fire to get the sunshine.

There is a little known spot above Sarnen called Langis. Langis is a well known cross country ski area in the winter with about 40 kilometers of groomed trails. In the summer, it is a fine place to hike, and along a small river, a good spot to cool off and picnic.

Langis is at 1500 meters above sea level. The fog is always below, and on pretty days, the sun is bright. There are two places to enjoy there. The Langis Hotel and a smaller restaurant along one of the trails.

Recently, we spent a few hours for lunch at the hotel. The place becomes more popular each year, and I am told that on weekends, the large parking area is full with a waiting list.

This shows about 10 % of the parking lot at Langis.

Below is the beginning of the winter walking and cross country trails. The trails are on an honor basis. You just put 5 CHF in the wooden box. There is no control, and you do not have to have a ticket.

Here is the hotel. A postal bus makes the trip up from Sarnen several times a day in the winter. In the summer, there are fewer trips, but at least two daily.

Of course, lunch was a good reason to drive up to Langis. Here you can see what on a lot of menus is called "cheese toast". OK, it is toast and cheese, but it isn't a Kraft slice run under the oven. It is a large slice of Swiss bread, covered with ham, and layered with some wonderful "Bergkaese". Then the whole thing is splashed with a bit of white wine and run under broiler covered to steam. It is not your Momma's cheese toast!!

A Guest Post

2010-11-25T10:26:00.000+01:00

My wife, Barbara, wrote this. It is true, and all of it is her story for which I am thankful on Thanksgiving. Maybe we have more to thankful for than we realize.

Grieving the death of a stranger on Thanksgiving Eve

In 1966, I was a 20- year old senior nursing student at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boson. Already able to handle significant responsibilities, I had to work in the Intensive Care Unit on that Thanksgiving Day. Right after the day shift ended at 3:30 p.m., a classmate and I drove to my sister’s home in Scituate MA. It meant a lot to me that the family was waiting until we got there to have dinner.

That Thanksgiving and all of the ones since have never been the same for me as those wonderful carefree ones preceding it had been.

The evening before, at the Charles Street Red Line MBTA station, I watched a tall man, in a beige raincoat, carrying a brief case, jump in front of the train.

I was waiting for the train, maybe sometime around 5:00 PM. It wasn’t quite dark yet; the weather was mild, cloudy and gloomy.

Some of the details have faded but I remember this stranger walking quickly past me, just inches away and maybe for a quick second making eye contact. I always smiled at people in those days so maybe I did then as well. He was in such a hurry. Why didn’t I wonder why he was moving at such a fast pace on his way to the far end of the platform, away from the others waiting for the train?

Just a few minutes later, as the train was approaching, he jumped onto the track and the screeching of the brakes pierced the quiet of the twilight. It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure it was real, but reality struck as workers quickly cordoned off the area and closed the station.

Who was this man? A husband? A father? A businessman? Was he facing spending Thanksgiving alone? Was he having financial or marital problems? Or was it just a deep depression that holiday festivities seem to make worse for so many people? Could I have smiled harder and maybe distracted him? If he could have gotten through the holiday weekend, might he have had a change of heart? Over and over again I’ve asked these questions. The idea of never knowing anything about this person, who died in an instant right before my eyes, has made it even harder.

Now here I am again, 44 years later, still feeling so sad about the death of a stranger on Thanksgiving eve. Someone, somewhere loved that man and I just want them to know that I am so sorry for their loss.

This year, I just finally needed to share this story. I never met him or spoke to him but he will always be with me.

A Trip to the Grimsel Pass

2010-10-08T17:11:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a spectacular weather day. Barbara has had school vacation for the last two weeks, so we took off. Originally, we planned to go to Meiringen and go through the Aareschluct, however on the way there, we saw that the high passes were open again. Some days ago, the early fall snows had closed them. Since they had reopened, we decided to go up to the Grimsel Pass and check things out.

On the way, we paused in Lungern because the Wetterhorn was in fine shape for a picture, as was the nice lake.

We went over the Bruenig Pass and started up the Grimsel road at Innertkirchen. There was a fair amount of road construction in the tunnels on the way, but the drive was as spectacular as ever through the village of Guttanen, past the hotel at Hardeck, the Gelmerbahn valley station, and on above the tree line.

Soon, we were at the Grimsel Pass summit. From the parking lot, I was able to see the highest mountain that I ever climbed. The Sidelhorn is 9028 feet above sea level, and it looked a lot harder than it did twelve years ago. Glad not to do that again today.

Most of the shops, etc. at the pass have already closed, but the one hotel/restaurant that was open had a crowd, as it was noon. We decided to look at the Marmot zoo before lunch.

Then, it was time for nourishment for ourselves. Our server told us that after 24 October, the place shuts down until June.

The top picture is the Walliserteller, a plate of air dried meats and cheese served with typical Wallis style bread, pickles, and pearl onions. This was the small size, so the regular would be a multi-person meal. Barbara had a good looking mushroom soup and then had to help me with the dried meat dish. Foods and tastes are always enhanced by high altitude.

A short ride down from the pass, one comes to the Grimsel Hospiz and the actual Grimsel Dam. There has been an extensive renovation of the Hospiz Hotel, and the power company has added a very nice new visitor's center with a wide variety of exhibits.

In 2001, Barbara and I were hiking a wanderweg along the northern side of the lake formed by the dam when she fell and fractured her ankle, requiring a helicopter rescue by the REGA service. The pictures don't show the path from our vantage, but it parallels the lake shore where the mountain river exits the rocks.

While were at Hospiz, we toured the visitor's center, noted the rates at the hotel (very reasonable and open year-round), and watched a working helicopter moving equipment from a project on the dam. Not cheap at about 90 CHF per minute!

This trip can be done without a car using the great Swiss Postal Bus System too.

Then it was time to head for home. Wonderful weather, good lunch, and a chance to see what man and nature can do.

It's Football Time!

2010-09-09T09:50:00.000+02:00

The NCAA season is upon us in college football. With ESPN, even in CH I can see about 300 games. Not always my choice but some great teams unknown to me. So far I have watched three games and am in the midst of a fourth.

Early observations:
Arm garters are still a big thing. All I could find out last year was that they were some kind of "fashion statement". If that's the case, they probably aren't the stupidest thing that ever got that term. I can't help but wonder if there isn't another reason. If the blood return from the lower arms and hands is impeded by these rubber bands (I guess they are rubber), do the fingers swell enough so the hands are bigger to catch the ball or another player?
This season there seems to be a proliferation of intricate and ornate tattoos on many upper arms. Some of these guys look like a character in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Are these supposed to frighten the opposition?
Has anyone done a survey on how many players have first names that start with a "T"? There is a whole gaggle of them.

Somethings do not change. The quarterbacks still don't even scratch without a signal from a coach. The cocktail waitresses and waiters still carry around drinks to the players. I suppose that is to prevent fights and gossip at the water cooler.

Evidently, college football players don't spit. Maybe they drool a lot, but one cannot see that on TV.

The season has just begun, so there will a lot more to come. I am looking forward to it!

An Old Mistress of Mine

2010-05-28T08:38:00.005+02:00

I first met her way back in 1974. We were both much younger and had a bit of a wild streak in us. Little did I know then that our lives would be intertwined for over twenty years. My wife and children knew about her from the very first but rarely interacted with her. This was good because I loved her dearly and would have been heartbroken if I had been made to give her up. A lot of my friends were jealous of our union. My business partner gazed at her and simply said, "She is a real sex machine". She and I both had a penchant for traveling, and we went many places together with great pleasure. It was a rare occasion when we were apart for more than a few hours. Her upkeep was not cheap, but the joy she gave me was well worth more than mere money. Sometimes, I felt as if I had waited my whole life for her to come to me. As she aged, she became like a fine wine; more precious than ever. She watched my children grow up, and even a second wife was tolerated. Her health remained good until the very end. When I had to give up up, she was still a daily delight in my life. I know that she has found another liaison, but I have not seen her in many years. I do keep her picture with me and often look at it with a certain longing in my heart. She has become more and more valuable as the years have passed.

A 911 Porsche Targa. In 1974, she cost 13,500.00 brand new, and in 1994, she fetched 9,800.00 on departure.

Dummie

2010-05-14T21:20:00.003+02:00

Dummie was all that I ever heard him called. As a preschooler, I sometimes would see a large black man in our neighborhood. I say large because everyone was large to me, but I used my father as the standard. If someone was taller than my dad, he was large. Anyway, my mother told me that the man was called Dummie because he could not hear and therefore could not speak. That, in itself, was a new revelation to me.

I suspect that Dummie did yard work for some people, but I never saw him except when he was walking in the street by our house. He always had a big grin on his face and would give a wave. Shortly after I began school, Dummie seemed not to be around anymore. One can hope that maybe he went to The Tennessee School for the Deaf, but I doubt it. In this day and time, his life would have been very different.

Gigli Eats a Bit of Crow

2010-04-19T08:21:00.003+02:00

Some of you know that I am not much of a Francophile. I don't know why. I have French ancestors, a French name, and I have had some great excursions to Province, Grenoble, Lyon, and Normandy. Regardless of this, I have never had an urge to see Paris. I have often disparaged the city as sidewalks covered with dog poopage, surly people, French snobs, etc.

It was a source of conflict for me when two of my grandchildren wanted to come to Paris on their spring break and requested that Barbara and I meet them for a week in The City of Light. Without a believable way to cop out, I agreed, and off we went. The TGV ride from Basel to Paris was like greased lightening. We had booked a hotel around the corner from what was to be our apartment for a week, so we could meet the USA contingent there the next morning. In past French visits, my severely deficient French had always served me well. It was true in all of Paris, that if one opened a conversation with a bit of their language, they were happy to speak with you in yours, if they could.

I found the service in the stores and restaurants at least comparable with that in any tourist mecca. That was never more evident in the many open markets that Paris has. On more than one occasion, a person waiting with us would also offer their assistance in translating. The same was true on the streets when looking at a map, etc.

I was surprised to hear and see German both written and occasionally spoken in Paris, once occupied by the Nazis. I frequented a small bakery close to the apartment and usually used a French word or gesture to communicate. On one day, I misspoke a few words of German. To my surprise, the young lady clerk spoke back to me in German! She spoke both German and English but was better at English.

We enjoyed the usual tourist spots such as the Eiffel Tower, The Lourve, and other attractions. These would be a shame to miss, but for the most part are best seen once in my opinion. Everyone should do these things, but many such as the tower are best enjoyed from a distance. The Champs Elysees was a favorite for people watching and widow shopping, but since the rents are over 100,000 dollars a month, the prices are a bit high for my tastes. The avenue does make Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse look a bit small time.

Would I go back to Paris? Sure I would if given the same circumstances. One must understand that I was with some of the people who are treasures of my life. If not, then I still might go back, but only after some other things on my list. Another trip to Normandy, another trip to Berlin, more of Austria and Bavaria, and last but not least, Ireland. If I went back to Paris, I likely wouldn't do so much of the tourist thing. I would spend more time in the side streets and by-ways.

Anyway, I hope crow will BBQ well, since I have the grill fired up.

NO NO (Norah)

2010-02-10T08:51:00.010+01:00

I got the idea for this blog from a book that I have almost finished. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, could almost be a biography of my early years. Some of you know that I was born and grew up in the South (Tennessee). Hitler invaded Poland when I was 6 months old. The Civil War had been over for 75 years, but there were remnants of segregation all over the USA (not limited to the South). Because of that, black people were at the bottom of the job chain. A lot of black women found work as maids. Maids came in two categories, day and full time. Full time meant that they lived on site. Full time maids wore white uniforms, as a rule, at least out in public. A white uniform on a black woman with a white child in tow would get her into a lot of places that she would not ordinarily go.

Exactly when NO NO came to live with us is beyond my memory, but I expect it was while I was still a baby in arms. Our house was separated by about 10 yards from "the little house", a two room affair attached to our single garage. The small house was fitted with gas heat and electricity. It was NO NO's home. During the day, she took care of our house, and mostly she was my nanny. I was her full time charge, but my mother took care of a lot of the household duties. I never recall NO NO cooking or serving meals. She did wash and iron clothes, but I think she had me as her main duty. The rest was secondary.

Why NO NO? It was all I could get out of my mouth in early talking efforts, and it stuck. In effect, I renamed Norah. I know that she had at least a sister, but I recall no history of a marriage or children for NO NO. She had a family name, but I have forgotten this and likely never heard it more than once or twice. She was such a great part of my daily life that I always considered her as family. Unlike some in "The Help", my parents treated her as a valuable member of the household. I have no clue as to her salary, but she had a place to live, which I learned later was a nicer spot than a lot of her friend's. She had at least a Sunday off, and her schedule could be flexible. She worked only nights when my parents were gone. I learned a lot about many things from NO NO. Early on, she taught me about race. The "N" word was not used in our household. She was called by her name, and others were called "colored". I remember being in a car somewhere with my mother and NO NO, and for some reason race came up. NO NO explained me that God made all people but some were different colors. She always preferred to think of her self as a Negro. That was a lot for a 3 or so year old to soak up, but it was the first word that I learned to spell. I knew that her skin was black but she was still NO NO to me.

On occasion, we would travel down into Alabama or to Memphis to see grandparents. NO NO was always with us. I wish that I could know where she slept, bathed, or went to the bathroom at those places. My grandmothers both had maids but not full time. I can only imagine that NO NO stayed with these women. Once, in Memphis, NO NO took me to the municipal swimming pool not far from my grandmother's house. I strolled off and jumped into the deep end of the pool. NO NO began to scream for help, as I sunk. Not being happy with the response from onlookers, she jumped into the pool, white uniform and all, to fish me out. Now, a black woman in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1940s, jumping into a whites only public pool was out of the ordinary. Years later, she would pull up her skirt to show her knees. "See them white scars on my black skin? That is from pulling you out of that water". Regardless, I am here to tell the tale. My first nickname was also a thing from NO NO. While in Alabama at my other grandmother's house, I came out the back door one morning crunching on something. NO NO was already in the yard and thought I had a piece of toast in there. UNTIL, she saw two legs slip through my lips. She fished out a June bug, and for her, I always answered to "June Bug".

As I mentioned, NO NO had at least one sister. The first time that I remember her was in her house which was also some sort of black woman's beauty parlor. For a small child, the view of a black woman having her hair done with a curling iron heated to sizzling over a coal stove was impressive. NO NO's sister had a boy my age named Robert. Sometimes, Robert would come to see her, and we would explore the small world of our back yard and vacant lot. When it came time for Robert and I to go to school, our ways parted. That was the way it was then. I wonder what happened to Robert? In later years, NO NO went to live in retirement with her sister. Even when in college, it was a Christmas time visit yearly that we took NO NO her gift there. Usually, a 10$ bill. Often that would buy her a ton of coal for her winter. One of those years, my mom told me that this year we would not go. NO NO had died. How old? I do not know, but I remember her gray hair. My mother never had across word to or about NO NO.They were partners more than employer-employee.

Random memories: I can remember that it was a joke in our house that NO NO would rock me to sleep even after I was almost tall enough to drag the floor with my feet. I remember NO NO as a snuff user. Did you know that a finger in her mouth with it applied to a bee sting is curative? As in the book, there was a network of maids who cared for children together. I remember my sandpile sweetheart from down the street had a nanny named Jessie. NO NO taught me by listening to speak in "Dialy" (dialect). This stood me well when in the 5th grade, my teacher (whose father had been in the KKK) praised my recitation of an Uncle Remus story in class

There is no doubt in my mind that NO NO loved me, as if I was her own. Our skins were different, but I don't think for a minute that we thought about that. Times change. Sometimes for the best. I do think that I had something that others will never have. Right or wrong, it was good for me, and I think it was good for NO NO.

I loved "The Help". The author's web site is informative also.

Pathology Reports

2010-02-07T11:15:00.002+01:00

For the few that will get prostatic cancer, a word on reports.

I think that reports need to be addressed, both biopsy and surgical pathology reports. As a medical student, I was fortunate to spend a 3 month lay-out quarter working in a hospital pathology department. Since it was in the nation's largest privately owned hospital with about 1200 beds, we had plenty to do back in the 60s. I was also lucky to work with four very nice pathologists who were interested in teaching. Other than a dozen autopsies (also very instructive), I spent all my days cutting surgicals. For whatever reason, surgical pathology was not stressed in our general pathology courses, so my mind was a fertile field to plow.

Each day, I was given specimens removed at surgery to describe grossly into a dictaphone, cut sections (I was taught where to cut on a given specimen), and then read with a double microscope the microscopic slides from those that I had cut two days before. The pathologist was on the other side of the double scope to teach me. It was one of the most rewarding periods in my medical education. With this lengthy preamble, I will now try to get to the point.

We saw a lot of prostate specimens, both whole and chips from trans-urethral resections (TUR). I would guess maybe 20-30 specimens per week. Most of these specimens were sent to us because men had prostatism (BPH) and not cancer. In those days, there was no PSA test, and a man with PC usually came to surgery because of a nodule on DRE. The TURs were the majority unless a man with a so-called "median bar" required open prostatectomy, which was treated with complete removal rather than a TUR.

When examined microscopically, often the chips or the sections of the whole prostate would reveal malignant cell structures. These were usually considered as incidental findings and reported to the surgeon. CT scans were unknown, bone scans were so primitive as to be nearly worthless, and the urologist had to watch for new evidence of recurrence. If bone metastasis showed up on x-rays, then an orchiectomy (testicle removal) was done. Biopsies may have been done back then, but I recall seeing none.

OK. Now to the REAL point of this message, When a pathologist looks at sections of prostate tissue with cancer evident, there is not a little sign there down in the tissue that says "Gleason 4+3, 4+4, or some such". This determination is an ESTIMATE, not an absolute, and it is based on cell appearance. Give the same slides to another pathologist and, you may get a different grading, up or down. The same goes with estimates of per cent of the prostate involved. Of course this is a good reason for multiple readings of slides. I suppose one could send slides to a hundred pathologists, and then take the majority opinion as gospel, but that is ridiculous. In our department, it was standard procedure for more than one doc to look at anything questionable. Disputes were judged by the head man. Gleason was yet to set out his system, so the grades were I-IV, with IV being what is now a Gleason 10.

If you are disturbed by your Gleason score or other micro findings remember the doc is looking at a tiny portion of your prostate on biopsy. In a whole specimen, as a rule, the look is not a lot greater (sometimes our guys would tell us to make more slides of other areas to see further cells). Those scores are not written in stone by any means.

The New American Football, Page Two

2010-02-01T15:10:00.003+01:00

Some weeks ago, I wrote some observations about how American college football had changed in my perception over the years that I have seen it infrequently. Well, now the season is over. I had a lot of fun watching various teams from all over the USA play season and bowl games. The ESPN-360 was well worth it.

I like ESPN, but I wonder if they realize that their announcers and "color commentators" are often afflicted with the terminal "blathertosis". These guys are constantly yapping about something and not always about football either. I really do not care about which restaurant at which they ate last night. They often digress, and frequently sound like pitchmen for a given player or coach to the NFL. I wonder if they get a commission? Another thing; what is the deal with all these girls(mostly) running around on the sidelines with green bottles like cocktail waitresses? I understand the need for good hydration, but what happened to the table with cups of liquids on it? These players are big boys who ought to be able to get their own drinks. On another note,each broadcast team seems to have at least one female member who is on the sidelines. Now, I am all for equality in the workplace, but if I was a coach in a tight game, I would likely be unkind when one of these babes stuck a microphone in my face to ask an asinine question about how I felt.

I guess the modern locker room looks like a hospital now with x-ray machines, CT scanners, etc. Won't be long before there will an OR in it, so that arthroscopy can be done on shoulders and knees. Sometimes, the coaches look like they are going to stroke out also, so CT scans might be helpful for them.

Just a few last thoughts for this year....

A Little Snip and a Little Snip There

2009-12-01T16:55:00.003+01:00

This is copied from a post that I placed on The Healing Well Prostate Forum. A great place for anyone who has or had prostatic cancer.

One of the things about having a RALP in a foreign country is being confronted with different cultural experiences. My surgery was done in a large hospital (800 beds?) in Luzern, Switzerland. The nursing staff was multilingual, as is the norm in Switzerland, and highly competent in my opinion. I do know good nurses from bad. In any event, the second day out of the OR, a nice Indian nursing instructor came in and asked in very good English, if she and a student could give me a bed bath as a teaching exercise. Now, I have spent 30 years or so in a teaching hospital environment, and I was fine with her request.

Before long I was lying on my back having each leg washed and dried. As I think we all know, pelvic modesty at this point in time is way out the window if you have had prostate cancer, so I had no compunction about these two ladies giving me a perineal wash. The student's English was limited to non-existent, so the instructor was doing a bilingual session. I became aware that the attention being paid to my penis was taking some time. I have to say that I have nothing in the way of a show-stopper in the penis department (John Holmes, I am not). Of course seeing a catheter was not unusual for both these women. What was unusual was that neither of them had ever seen a circumcised penis. When I inquired if there was a problem, the instructor said that they understood the importance of cleansing the foreskin of the penis, but they could not find one on me.

Thereafter, I gave a short history of circumcision, including the religious and social aspects of this procedure. The ladies were rapt with academic interest and spent some time discussing this in a Swiss dialect. This was accompanied with no small amount of manipulation, and at this point, I realized that indeed, the usual activity resulting from female manipulation was lacking in "the man". I also found it amusing and began to hope that my wife would not choose to make an entrance at this time. I thought that she would understand, but who can say? The ladies finished there explorations with newly acquired knowledge, finished my bath, thanked me nicely, and I did not see them again. I can tell you that I think the other students in the class got a new discussion of this pearl of nursing education at their next class. My wife took my news of this event with mixed emotions and was glad that she had missed the instructive events.

The Robot and Me

2009-11-27T10:01:00.003+01:00

The Kantonsspital in Luzern was not unknown to me. I had been there to visit friends and to have an outpatient skin surgery in the past. I had already pre-admitted myself, so there wasn't much to do except go up to the Urology Floor. The head nurse greeted us, and I found that between the staff's English and my less than perfect German, we had no communication problems. I was admitted on a Tuesday for surgery the following AM. Dr. Mattei had told me that he does the robotics once daily, begins as the first case, and uses a dedicated team. Those were all important points for me. Blood work, chest x-ray, and EKG took up the afternoon. There were about 5 patients on the floor for surgery the next day, so we all traveled in a group to the various labs. A good night enema was the final prep. Before that, one of the nurses came in and gave me a detailed discussion of what would take place after the operation. The anesthesia doc and the professor of the department also came by to discuss his part of the following day. He laughed when I told him the last general anesthesia that I had was a tonsillectomy under open drop ether when I was in the third grade. Dr. Mattei also paid me a visit. Evertone from lab techs to Dr. Mattei wanted to know if I had any questions. I did not.

I slept well but was awake when Barbara arrived shortly after 6 AM. Anyone who knows Barbara will be assured that she loves me if she rose at such an hour. Shortly afterward, I left to go to the pre-op room. I had not received any pre-op meds until that point. An IV was started, and the anesthesia doc told me that he was going to put in an arterial line. Evidently, somebody turned out the lights then, because I knew nothing until about 8 hours later when I awoke in the post-anesthesia recovery room. The first thing that I did was to run my hand over my abdomen to see what sort of dressing I had. Any robotic procedure can be aborted and converted to an open procedure if conditions require this. I only had five band aid type dressings, so I knew that the robot had done its deed. I then became quite aware of a significant pain in my right hip and thigh. I had no other pain at all, but this was a real dilly. I had a pain pump hooked up to me that did a fine job, and because of the hip and leg, it got a pretty good workout. I stayed in this area almost 24 hours. It was not Heaven, but the nurses were angels that helped me turn and every so often rubbed my back with ice cold towels. That may not sound great, but it was just what I needed. I remember the doctor coming in. He later told me that he had been worried about me because I took so long to wake up. Truth be told, I had been awake but zonked out on the pain meds. The hip and thigh were the problem, and no one seemed to get the big picture. I went back to my room about 24 hours after awakening but stayed fogged out because I was pushing that little button on the pain pump every two hours.

Of course, I had a catheter in, but that didn't seem to bother me like a lot of others had reported. I was drinking as much water as they asked, and other than the first day, I saw no blood in the bag.. They stopped the pain pump the next day, and all of a sudden, I was hungry. One must be aware that the food in this hospital was good! Each day, I got a choice for breakfast that included any thing one could wish.For lunch and dinner, one got three menus from which to choose each time. By Friday morning, I was up and ready to eat. It was a shock when I sat up on the side of the bed to eat. My right leg shot up like a chorus girl kicks. I could not bend my knee because all those muscles were out. I had not noted this while lying down, but unless I took the left leg and held it down against the right, the leg stood straight out. The doctor was in at least daily, and when he saw this, he got the PT folks up to see me. In the meantime, I was up to sit in a chair a lot. Walking was another matter, as my right knee was not very stable. I made my own diagnosis of neurpraxia and all agreed that this seemed to be the case. The PT brought me a walker with which I could manage quite well. I knew that neurpraxia is usually a benign injury, and time would be my best friend. Later that day, I walked in the hall a bit. The Dr. Mattei came in and spoke in detail to Barbara and I about the surgery, what was done, and why it took about twice as long as the usual. He was to be off for the weekend, and asked if I would like to go home until Monday. Sweeter words I had not heard in some time, so I grabbed at the chance. I would have to come back on Monday to have a cystogram, and if it looked good, the catheter could come out. The nurses outfitted me with bags, etc. for the catheter, gave me instructions, and urged me to call if I had a problem.

One must understand that no matter how nice the hospital, home looks great. It did! There were no problems other than a leaky catheter bag which was replaced by my local urologist on a Saturday afternoon. Monday was to be the big day for the catheter removal. That was OK with me. Catheters can be downright convenient though. Looking for a bathroom is mostly only for a place to empty the bag. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to Monday.

We were there early on, a resident took me back, did the cysto, saw no leak, removed the catheter, and I was ready to go to the floor for one more night. Apparently, a lot of men have trouble with frequency that first night, so they are asked to stay close. Dr. Mattei came around that evening and was amazed that I had had no problems of any sort, was voiding normally, and met him in the hall. We had a chat, and he asked when I would like to go home. I told him "right now". I called Barbara to come and get me. He signed me out, gave some meds, and I was on my way. Other than the rare complication of the neurpraxia (which was rapidly improving), the robot was a piece of cake.

Prostates, modesty, and other things-part one

2009-11-21T11:37:00.005+01:00

A few of you readers know that I had an operation this summer. In the Spring, I found an elevated blood level of something known as prostate specific antigen (PSA). I have measured this for some years, and this time it was above normal by about twice the level of last year. So, it was time to investigate. I went from my family doc to a nice German Urologist in a nearby city. The upshot of that was that a biopsy was done at eight points in my prostate. By that time, I had been investigated with a repeat PSA that was still elevated and a DRE (digital rectal exam) commonly known as a "finger wave". The biopsy showed that I had PC (prostatic cancer). I should say that way back in my training years I had spent three nice months on the urology service in Memphis. I enjoyed urology because I had some mighty good staff men who let me do a lot. Prostatic cancer (PC) is a common thing in older men, so I never really felt the shock that people feel with the word "cancer". There are various ways to treat PC. Surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, what is called active surveillance, and sometimes a combination of these and other modalities. It has been said that all men will get PC if they live long enough but few will die from it.

It so happened that an old partner of mine has a son who is an urologist in the USA. We had been together earlier in the year when I was in the USA, and he had related that the son was doing a new procedure on the prostate using robotics. Now my experience doing open prostatectomies in past years had led me to believe that open prostatectomies were brutal and bloody. The fact that robotics had taken all that away was interesting, and it became even more interesting when I found out that I had PC. The doctors all went over my treatment options with me, but I knew that the robotic way was going to be what I wanted. The mentality of a surgeon is to cut it out, if it is cancer. Enter here the Internet. An unbelievable amount of information is available about PC there, and I began to research robotic assisted laproscopic prostatectomies (RALP). I also decided that I would feel more at home in a Swiss hospital than back in the USA, so I went on the hunt for one close to me. A little less than a year before I got the diagnosis, the Luzernerkantonsspital in Luzern had added a new man to their urology staff who was trained in RALP. I checked him and his credentials out on the Internet and even read some of his papers which he had published. He looked like the guy for me, so the local urologist called and set me up with an appointment with this doctor. Dr. Mattei turned out to be a super nice guy who answered most of my questions before I could ask them. He didn't mind telling me the straight scoop about his training, number of procedures done, good and not so good points about the operation, etc.

I signed on to meet the robot with him as soon as it could be done. That turned out to be a good 5 weeks later. The interval is needed because after biopsies are done, the prostate must return to normal before the robotic surgery can be done safely. The month of June and first week of July went slowly, but the time gave me a chance to study more on what was going to happen. I found some well done podcasts on the Internet to watch the operation, and I read about patients that had had this done. The RALP is truly a fascinating method of removing a prostate and its associated structures. The patient is under anesthesia on an operating table. The robotic machine is fixed in position over him, five or six arms of the robot are inserted into the abdomen through small openings (band aid size), and the surgeon sits across the room at a computer console. The surgeon uses movements with two fingers of each hand to manipulate the arms of the robot. The computer dampens down his movements so they are far more precise that with a human hand. The whole thing is seen through a 3-D camera with a great light source and 10x magnification. Watch a podcast if you want to see more. After the surgery, a catheter remains in the bladder for 3-4 days, but the patient often leaves the hospital the next day. Two or three ounces of blood loss is the average opposed to 8-10 times that with open prostatectomies.

When the big day on 8 July arrived, I was more than ready. The Luzern hospital is less than 30 minutes drive from home, so we were there in plenty of time on the day of admission. More will follow.

The New American Football

2009-11-20T18:03:00.006+01:00

I was born and grew up with SEC college football. I was educated at The University of Tennessee, so I have orange blood in my veins. I have always said that SEC football beats hockey by miles and is exceeded only, sometimes, by bull fighting. Well, this Fall is the first in over ten years when I have had the chance to see live college football. I owe this to my 13 year old grandson, Peter, who I suspect one day may be an ESPN reporter. Anyway, Peter clued me in about ESPN 360, and I subscribed. For a few Swiss Francs a month, I get more college football live and archived than I can watch in a week. Some things have changed!

I know this sounds like an old man, but I am an old man. Growing up in high school and college, as well as 25 years living in the USA, I watched a lot of football live and on TV. The quarterback was the smartest guy on the team. He knew all the plays and led the squad. Each team member depended on him to tell them the upcoming plays, so they knew what they were to do. Today, it seems that the game is run by the assistant coaches and the head man. Most of this done while the assistants are sitting in the boxes high above the stadium talking into radio headsets to the head coach down on the sideline. He keeps a paper of some sort in front of his face so the lip readers in the area cannot tell what he is saying. Guys along the sideline with him then give all sorts of hand signals to different members of the team on the field. Before the ball is snapped, the team all stops and turns to the sideline to get instructions.

Football equipment has steadily changed over the years much to the well being of the players. Helmet design is a lot safer, as are the other pieces of equipment that players wear. Shoulder and hip pads were long time standards. Today, a lot of players look like they are in full body armor. They even wear gloves. They still seem to have a lot of injuries. I wonder if this isn't because they are so well padded that they can hit each other much harder. When an injury happens, it usually isn't terrible, but there are a lot of bad knees and shoulders in these player's futures. If your CAT scan and/or MRI scan looks OK, then you will likely be in the next game's lineup.

It took me a few views before I realized that some of the players did not have a real shag carpet hanging out from under their helmets. Some of these players are immense and yet still very quick on their feet. In my day, a lot of the team weighed at or near 200 pounds. Today, that is considered light unless you play quarterback or kicker. Three hundred pounds and 6-plus feet tall are the rule. Frequently, I feel like a spectator watching in the amphitheater, as the gladiators duke it out.

Maybe, I have this all wrong. Football is still a great sport, but I fear that the culture has left me a bit out of date.

Mr. Jones

2009-06-28T17:09:00.004+02:00

I could swear that I have written about Mr. Jones before, but I am getting old. Anyway, Mr. Jones was a patient of my dad's and worked in Jackson, TN for the Illinois Central railroad as an engineer (he drove trains). I must have been about four years old when my dad came home from work one day and took me to the IC station. Mr. Jones had asked him if he thought that I would like to ride in the engine with him when The Seminole (a famous train of the day that came through every other day on the way from Chicago to New Orleans (I think)). The engine had to go to the yard to get more coal and water in Jackson, and it was that trip that I made more than once sitting in Mr. Jones ' lap.

Oh My!! Was that a treat or what? It was a combination of several things, excitement, fear, and a treat too. The steam engines of the day were hot, noisy, hissing, and lots of other things that awed a four year old. We sat on the left of the boiler with a firebox underneath. The fireman, who in those days was as far as a black made in the rail business, was constantly shoveling coal from the coal car into the hellish firebox to keep the steam up. There were a variety of valves, wheels, etc. that had to be manipulated too. Then there was the whistle! It seemed about to blow me out of the cab, but Mr. Jones would let me pull the lever. We made the trip to the yard and back as often as my dad could take me, and I have never forgotten the smell of that burning coal.

One day close to the time that Mr. Jones was to retire, he came through town on The City of Miami which had become diesel powered. He pushed me up into the cab. It was clean and cool. The horn sounded like a horn and not a whistle. I didn't know that I was seeing the end of an era. Had it not ended, I wonder if I would not have been an engineer like Mr. Jones.

A Light Extinguished

2009-06-01T08:08:00.003+02:00

A light became evermore dim and finally died out this week. "B" was a force in so many lives that she will be remembered by many from all walks of life. She died after several years with a form of cancer that spares 96% of people who have it. Ironic as that seems, she never did act as most ill persons. Her past history of illness ran from the rare to the unusual, and I often told her that if I were her physician, I would run out the back door when I saw her enter my office.

Her life began in Norway but ended after 40+ years in Switzerland. She and her husband, "A" produced three children that I often called "Stepford" children. They in turn, had grandchidren that are superlative. These gave her great grandchildren before she died. I have no idea how any step children there are to count. Numerous kids from Switzerland, the Balkans, and elsewhere lived for varying periods in her home. To this day, they all remember her. I am certain that more will turn up at her memorial service.

Then, there are the "step adults" who were fortunate enough to become her charges while vacationing in Switzerland. These people and their activities would fill a sizable book, and they all remembered the lady with a smile who could seemingly make things gone wrong OK again. The stories that she could tell about American tourists were many and always showed the fun she had with them. One of her cures for a kranky American was to invite that person to sit and have some Congnac. A lot of fussy folks have left her house feeling much better than they entered. She and "A" always planned a weekend excursion with the Americans in a car, so they go places that were not always reached eaisily by public transport. These along with frequent dinners helped make her a favorite with all her guests and resulted in many repeat visits. These Americans reciprocated when she traveled to the USA. People actually got mad when she and "A" were not able to visit just them. Everyone always considered them "their" friends. They certainly had more friends in the USA than I did.

A Walk on the Wild Side

2008-03-11T10:27:00.003+01:00

Just when you think that you have heard it all, here comes another crazy story (no, not about Eliot Spitzer).

The day before yesterday, it seems that four Korean gentleman tourists decided to take the Wanderweg from Alpnachstad and walk up to the top of Pilatus. In summer, that is a somewhat boring four hour hike. In winter, it is covered with deep snow and has no train service by the steepest cog train in the world. Because of areas of avalanche danger, it is also avoided under these conditions.

To make matters worse, these guys were outfitted with sneakers and open shoes (thongs?), light jackets, and blue jeans. They also had only a fanny pack between them. No one knew of their plans. All this makes a perfect disaster scenario.

About 5 PM, the manager of the Pilatus Kulm Hotel noticed a bedraggled and wet man on the terrace of the summit. The man informed the manager that he and three others had a reservation at the hotel. He spoke only some broken English but went to a room, showered, and then went to dinner. He happened to mention to a waitress that he had three friends who were coming up by way of the path. Everyone then realized that this man had not come up on the cable car from Luzern (Kriens) but had walked up from Alpnachstad. He had a summer walking map with him and showed the people there where his friends were when he last saw them. It turns out that this a spot called Mattalp where the trains stop in summer.

The hotel manager immediately called the Obwalden police who called the Swiss Alpine Club rescue squad. These folks along with a REGA helicopter equipped with a searchlight found these clowns about 8 PM. They had gotten into a hut and built a fire. The area was covered with a meter of snow. They were air-evacuated to Alpnachstad airport by the chopper in two trips. The mountain men were a sad looking lot and were put up in a hotel in Sarnen. I assume their compatriot stayed at the Pilatus Kulm. Their picture in the paper shows them to be somewhat serious.

Likely, their demeanor comes about because REGA will rescue anyone in trouble, but unless you are a sponsor, you foot the bill. At 80 CHF per MINUTE, this runs into money for a 90 minute jaunt with a helicopter (7200 CHF). Fortunately, they do take credit cards, and I guess these guys are maxed out now.

Tell Me This Is a Joke

2007-10-07T10:10:00.000+02:00

Below is a quote from this Sunday's Atlanta Constitution. *************************************************************************************************** How big is too big? The Georgia Department of Transportation may be about to learn. In a new era of tolls and private investment in roads, the state is considering road projects that dwarf anything in its history: $500 million to expand western I-285, $1.4 billion for Ga. 400, $4 billion for I-75 and I-575. Peanuts. As expensive as those projects are, Atlanta needs something far, far bigger and better connected, say a growing number of state Transportation Board officials. Namely, expand the whole Atlanta major highway system, add a web of truck-only lanes and HOV toll lanes to the freeways and, perhaps, new toll roads like a redrawn Northern Arc or Midtown tunnel. Think $30 billion to $50 billion. And no, the state doesn't have the money. But you do. DOT consultants are calling it "the whole enchilada." Metro Atlanta is drowning in congestion, the board members say, and a project here and there won't cut it. Private investment, paid back by tolls, would have to fund all or part of it. Companies — or one private consortium — could finance it, build it, and lease it for decades, reaping returns by collecting tolls and probably sharing profits with the state. ****************************************************************************************************** This is just the opening of the article. Am I the only one who thinks that before these projects are finished, gasoline and other fossil fuels are going to be either non-existant or beyond the pocketbook of any comsumer? Who in their right mind would invest in a boondawgle like this. Who is going to have money for tolls when the gas is so expensive that you cannot buy it? I thought this was a joke at first, but these nitwits are seriously shortsighted.

The USA Summer

2007-07-24T15:31:00.000+02:00

Our summer trip to the USA in RI is about to end. We are always ambivalent about going “home” to CH. It, as always, has been a busy time.

Children and grandchildren all like to come to Newport, and we are always ready to see these precious people in our lives. It is always a joy to see these kids and grandkids and to hear how their lives are changing. We get to experience the 24/7 aspects of the USA. We have fun buying and cooking the foods that are not common fare in CH. Just yesterday, I cooked a big “mess” of turnip greens. Before we leave, I am going to use my new Dutch oven pot to fix some crayfish/alligator etoufee. I wish that I could get that pot back to CH, but it is too heavy.

This year, we traveled to my old hometown of Jackson, Tennessee to be at my high school’s 50th class reunion. That was a real hoot for both of us. It did use up four days of our Newport time though. Another exciting event for us was a trip to Boston to see the Red Sox play in Fenway Park. That is always an event. We enjoyed a concert one night in Providence and visits with USA friends here that we often see in CH.

I continue to find Rhode Islanders very unique people. The traffic courtesy is still here even though our rental car has NY plates. The condo is as nice as it is always, but there are also the usual things to do to keep it up. We are fortunate to have a lovely lady retired navy captain to live in it for us this year, so that is one less thing to worry us. I want to get back to CH to see how our plants are doing, meet old friends, and get the German papers to brush up. Of course, Barbara has her students, the bridge club, and the international ladies club on which to check.

We are indeed fortunate people.

Half of a Century

2007-07-18T17:50:00.001+02:00

This last weekend, I went to my 50th high school reunion. To say the least, it was a mixture of fun and sadness. It was fun to see all these senior citizens who looked vaguely familiar but who sounded just like they did 50 years ago. Everyone had changed, and some had done this more than others.

Our class had 183 members. Less than 50% attended the reunion with spouses or alone. From what I hear, our attendance was pretty good. 26 members of the class have died ( 14% ). That is better than expected. Those that have died were definitely present with us and likely were remembered by all. None of us were unaware of the fact that it was only a matter of time until we joined their club.

One thing was clear. There is an "Olive Oil" Syndrome. This is what a friend of mine calls it when a skinny and plain girl in high school grows into an attractive older woman. I saw several examples, while the reverse was also true too.

There were parties and grand opportunities to visit, tell stories, and share experiences. We had gained families, work history, and life knowledge. Someone will the last one left of our group. I hope they remember to turn off the lights when they leave.

Isn't this the Truth?

2007-07-07T14:27:00.000+02:00

"hope that can never die /Effort and
expectation and desire/ and something evermore
about to be"
The above is from Scott Fitzgerald.

What a great thought! If you think about it, this is what Idyllers do before every trip. It also works with children and grandchildren.

Is this as It Is Supposed to Be?

2007-07-05T15:53:00.000+02:00

I saw Big Al (Al Gore) on TV twice this AM. Once on a liberal branch of the media and once on a conservative network. He is not one of my favorite politicians, as few are these days. In fact, I am hard pressed to vote for anyone right now. I am a Tennessean by birth, but Al isn't one of us, as far as I am concerned. His father, on the other hand, was a tolerable liberal.

My point is this. The first question out of each interviewer's mouth today was about Gore's son who was caught with a DUI and drugs in his car yesterday. What the *(%$# does this have to do with politics, global warming, or anything in the public sphere? My answer is nothing at all. What do John Edwards' wife's breasts have to do with anything outside her family? Same answer from me.

We all put our pants on one leg at a time. If we are parents, we all are subject to worry about the whims of our adult children. Big Al's son is 24 years old!! Having seen other similar situations, I know that what adult children do with their lives are not under parental control and are largely a matter of the Grace of God or something else aside from our responsibility.

The networks are out of control and need to be censured in the most effective way. That way is to bring down the wrath of God around those who pay for the airtime to advertise. If this is censorship (I doubt this), then it is as it should be. Freedom of speech does not allow one to yell Fire" in a crowded place just for the hell of it. The media needs to be held accountable for their actions. This kind of interview has no value.

A Tale from a Friend

2007-07-02T13:43:00.000+02:00

Olympic air was just like the reviews I read about them on line previous to the trip. The flights were late, the food was lousy, and the service was poor. On the flight from JFK it was 4 and a half hours before they served anything. We caught on after a few hours that it was self service. If you wanted a drink you went to the gallery at the back of the plane and poured yourself a water or juice. We saw the greeks walking to the back and coming back with cups of water. So Sue went to the back and got us 2 waters. they had pitchers on a table.
After they served the meal the attendants disappeared.

Right after the plane took off from JFK while the plane was still ascending Greek passengers got up and started walking around and going to the bathroom. Finally they sent a female stewardess forward to chase them back to their seats. It was funny she blocked the one bath room door with her body. There was a lot of yelling and hand motions. The one steward got into 6 fights, 3 with the same guy whom he kept picking on and 3 ladies. It was funny.

The return trip was a 10 hour 40 minute trip so I stocked up with food and water for the return trip, but on the way home they served a hot meal one hour into the flight, shut the lights out and told you to close the window shades, and then disappeared for 7 hours and self service kicked in. We got a cold meal an hour before we landed. I swear the attendants changed into tourist garb and hid among the passengers. The check in at the Santorini airport was hillarious. That's a story for another time.

At least the pilots were good, they made very smooth landings.

How about this for Irony?

2007-06-29T14:13:00.000+02:00

Things just get crazier and crazier to me. Michael Moore and Paris Hilton, admittedly not at the top of my favorite people's list, are two of the top stories this week. Poor Paris, who I think has all the attributes of a knot on a log, and Mike (laughing all the way to the bank) Moore are right in the top Yahoo News headlines today. It seems that Mike got bumped from Larry King's (don't get me started on that ding dong) show, so Paris could tell us how things went in the slammer. To add insult to injury, yesterday Mike got the door of The New York Stock Exchange slammed in his face. Apparently he failed to make arrangements to be allowed in the exchange (that has a faint odor to it also, but that is the exchange's story).

Paris is till soaking in Lysol, but Mike says that he is beginning to take things personally. You think???

Who Are They Kidding?

2007-06-14T13:58:00.000+02:00

Since arrival here in the land of super size and 24/7, I have noted that the TV is inundated with talking heads. Most of them are talking about the distant presidential election and its candidates. Do they think, at this time, many of us are interested?

CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc. all are extolling the wonders of this or that person, offering critiques, wondering out loud about this or that, etc. This all done by "experts". Even people who are unannounced candidates are not spared.

Who are the beneficiaries of all this wind? Certainly, no voter is going to make a hard and fast decision today, so count them out. The people who are benefiting are the TV networks. Millions of dollars are already being spent from campaign war chests. All this goes to the networks. Knowing politicians, who thinks that a TV show has a hard time getting their mouths open? As a result, we are bombarded daily with blather on this or that possibility. So much for that. The networks rake in the dollars, and the politicians pay for and get, time to expound. We get to listen.

Wouldn't You Know?

2007-06-13T13:38:00.000+02:00

Things are getting pretty scary here now. In the last two days, I have read reports that tend to make me wonder if indeed humans are as smart as they think. When you see what a mess humans have made of the world, I suppose that it is no wonder to question that.

Elephants can hear with their feet? It seems that they can do this over long distances by pounding on the jungle floor. If that isn't amazing enough, it seems that they can also recognize each other by the sounds their feet make. If they get warnings from a reliable source, they believe them. If these warnings are from a questionable source, then they ignore them. Too bad that humans cannot always do that. If they could pull this off, all the politicians would be in another line of work.

Now, the best one for today is that cockroaches can learn things. These little beasts have been around for many centuries, so is it any wonder that they can learn? It seems that like Pavlov's dog, they can salivate when a repeatable stimulus is presented to them. If a cockroach smells an odor when being fed a sugar solution, they learn to associate this odor with feeding. Then, when some sneaky scientist turns the odor machine on but leaves off the sugar solution, they salivate. Salivate?? Who would like to be the guy who runs the saliva measurement machine? "What does your dad do?" "He runs the spit measurement laboratory." Can't you just see a cockroach pondering the theory of relativity?

An Explosive Experience in the Zurich Airport

2007-05-31T13:32:00.000+02:00

Barbara and I left Zurich for the USA on 30 May this week. As usual, we shipped our luggage to the airport, so we did not have to schlepp the bags from two trains. The baggage is kept at the "to claim" section of the airport's SBB station where one picks up it with claim checks before checking in. No problems as usual. HOWEVER, this year we were told that they would sell us baggage checks for our use when we returned in a couple of months.

As I went in to claim our bags, the lady was berating a couple of young students who must have asked a dumb question. She was too old for PMS, but still was a bit nasty to them. She looked at me like I was some sort of hairy mole on her body but took the checks and got the bags. The I asked about the baggage checks for our return trip so that we could, as we usually do, pick up the bags in Sarnen. She consulted her screen and informed me that this was not going to happen because there was no code in the system for Sarnen. When I pushed the issue with her, she flipped the screen around to show me that there was no code.

I realized that I was dealing with a closed mind and a loosing situation, so I walked out and went next door to a ticket counter. While the lady there in the usual polite tone told me that of course one could ship bags to Sarnen. About that time, here comes Brunhilde with three baggage tickets to Sarnen in her hand for me and some comment about her being on the wrong web page. She led me next door while admonishing me not to go looking for other opinions when she told me something.

Well, for me that did it, I let her know what I thought of her and her obviously "bad day". She was not happy at my evaluation of her, her day, SBB in general, and my lack of concern that she had worked for SBB for thirty years. To the last comment, I mentioned if she had not learned in thirty years how to satisfy a customer then maybe all her days were "bad days". Just as we were nose to nose things blew up!

The pick up station has two large glass sliding doors that open automatically to facilitate large baggage wagons, etc. There was no one near us or the doors, and the doors were closed. She was facing them and my back was to them. A huge explosion sounded!! I remained motionless ( If I had not been so pissed, I likely would have ducked). Brunhilde turned as white as clay, grabbed her chest and ducked downward. I heard glass clattering to the floor and turned to see safety glass shards in at least 5000 pieces falling to the floor. As I turned back to the counter, I said, I told you that you were having a bad day, now see what you have done?" She screamed, "You didn't move; you are a cool one!" I advised her that she had better be careful what she said to me because there was another door right behind me.

Then she began to laugh. Other SBB personnel arrived and I advised them that "She did it." The all began to laugh. She said that this man didn't move!! The fun continued as I told them that I ought to get a discount for being in a war zone, and that with a start like today's had been, maybe I shouldn't get on any airplanes today. She and I discussed our mutual feelings about the state of the SBB baggage system currently. My theory is that the clowns in charge of making the rules, don't ride the trains to work. Her idea is that they hire people with book knowledge but no practice. We are both likely right.

Anyway, whatever was eating at this lady got blown away by the door explosion. She smiled at me as I left, likely because she realized that incontinence was still a problem for her future.

I don't know why a glass door broke in that way with no one near it, but it was nice that the doors are safety glass. Anyone next to it would have been spooked but not cut. I suspect that the pane got torqued a bit for some reason in its track and went boom.

My New Idol- A Lawyer!!

2007-05-27T18:03:00.000+02:00

The TV show, "Boston Legal" is held up almost entirely by a character called Denny Crane. I just love this guy who is played by William Shatner. I love Denny for lots of reasons. Just the way he says "Denny Crane" when he is introduced gives me a laugh.

Denny is much more than that however, he is irreverent, scandalizes people and ideas, he epitomizes "politically INCORRECT, has the morals of an alley cat (not that unusual in legal circles), and in general is just a lovable scoundrel. He can horrify anyone with barely more than a look.

There is a great site with a Denny Crane quote generator that I find very entertaining.

http://tvcomedies.about.com/library/quotes/bl_denny_crane_quotes.htm

This clown gives reason for The Vent Guy to quake in his boots. He is at:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/vent/index.html

If we are all really honest with ourselves and insightful, most of us will identify, or want to identify, with Denny Crane. If not, then you have my sympathy.

It's about Time

2007-05-12T11:26:00.000+02:00

When I came to CH in 1977, you could have eaten off the curb or sidewalk in Zurich, the country's largest city. Now, you might not be able to do this in a small village. I used to say that if you saw a candy wrapper, etc. on a hiking trail that it meant a tourist had been by there. Now, I doubt the tourists are completely at fault. There are so many new people living here from countries where filth is the norm, that I suspect them. Also, the Swiss are not without guilt here. The younger generation has not been expected to do as they were taught and keep a clean country. In that first visit, I remember a sidewalk lecture given to a toddler by his father. The toddler's infraction? He had dropped a gum wrapper on the sidewalk. Besides the oral education, he learned to walk over to the refuse can and put his wrapper in it.

To see wrappers, fast food throw away, and drink containers along the road, train line, or hiking paths is now the norm. BUT LOOK OUT! The areas of Bern, Basel, Luzern, and others have instituted fines for littering. These range from 30-300 CHF, and in some places are due on the spot. That means cash or a visit to the police station. Cigarette butts, gum or wrappers, and other trash go into a can or remain in your backpack until you find a receptacle. I expect the smaller villages to be more stringent than other areas. One might want to be aware of this force against the "throw away society".

WW II and "J"

2007-05-06T14:58:00.000+02:00

On 13 April 2006, I wrote a blog about "J" and her life in occupied Paris as a teenager. Well, "J" turned 84 the other day, and we had a nice lunch together with Barbara, "J's" husband, and her niece who lives in Paris.

I thought maybe some readers might like to see her picture, so here it is.

Normandy, the Finale

2007-05-03T10:30:00.000+02:00

21 April, Saturday

Today was packing day with plans for an early departure on Sunday. I hit the big grocery store for last minute purchases, mailed some cards, and got some Euros for use on the return trip. Then we had “refrigerator clean out” for supper.

22 April Sunday

Up in the dark for a 13-hour drive home. But what memories! Home still looked good.

A few days later, I learned that we were only a few miles away from where my seventh great grandmother had lived before she emigrated to Quebec almost two hundred years ago. Maybe this will be an excuse for another journey. We did not visit Cherbourg or Caen, so that could be another trip.

Normandy, Part Four

2007-05-03T10:20:00.000+02:00

19 April Thursday

Today was another beautiful day and a trip to Mont St. Michel was planned. Someone had told me to get there early, so we were up and gone by good daylight. That was good advice, since by the time we left there about noon; the place was covered up with arriving tourists.

We had about an hour and a half drive through beautiful Norman countryside, but by 9 AM, we were walking the causeway over to this huge castle perched on a massive rock and surrounded by the ocean at high tide. This in itself is interesting because a lot of the parking lots are built on the tidal flats. If you don’t get your car out by the time the tide comes in, you are wet. We parked further away, since the lots were flooded then. It was about a mile walk to the gates of the castle and the village at its feet. There are the usual gaggle of tourist shops and restaurants in the narrow alleys along the base of the rock, but these were just opening.

For 8 Euros each we got an admission (comes with a free tour if you want to wait on the language schedule), and for 6 more Euros, we got two English guide audio phones for a self guided tour, which was very nice and complete. The stair climbs are significant but not that hard since not all is done at one time. We spent a couple of hours going about the different areas and hearing the history of this structure that was thought to have begun in 708 AD. School kids and even Japanese tourists were there in abundance.

On the way back out to the car, we stopped at the Au Pelerin Snack Bar for a drink. The Normandy cider has become a favorite of mine. It has less alcohol than a beer and is really good. Barbara’s new favorite libation is a Kir, and she quickly became the bartender’s new best friend. He told us about the three kinds of Kir; cassis and white wine (Kir), cassis and Champagne (Kir Royal), and a Kir Bretagne (cassis and cider).

Fortified thusly, we then made the walk to the car and headed out to wander someplace for lunch. We drove up the coast to a town called Granville where we found the Restaurant du Port. I had some of the best oysters on the shell that I have had in many years; small and sweet with a lemon-shallot sauce. No red sauce here! These and a Paella were just fine. Barbara had a dish of gratineed mixed fish in a cream sauce. This with a glass of Rose wine for her and more cider for me with my chocolate ice cream and her apple tart a la mode cost us 43.30 Euro. With breakfast and snacks at night at our apartment, this isn’t bad for our one “out meal” of the day.

After this we drove back to Bayeux over some wonderful Normandy country. The roads are superior here and well marked. Driving has not been a chore except for
the trip getting here from Sachseln.

20 April Friday

Another spectacular day dawned. Even the locals say that the weather this April has been exceptionally pretty. We made a foray into Bayeux for some shopping after hitting the big grocery store for goodies to take home. We killed some time until we could lunch at the restaurant that Jerome had mentioned the other day. He had admitted that his daughter owned the place. We saw him there today and told him we liked his choice. The Moulin de la Gallette has a very nice terrace open by the river and the old mill. The sun was warm, and we enjoyed a fine lunch. We enjoyed it so much that we had empty plates before we remembered the camera to make the pictures of it. We had started with an aperitif of cider and Pommeux (a mild apple liqueur). Barbara had a first course of pate-like meat made of what tasted like the crusts of baked ham served with tiny pickles. The she had a slice of local ham covered in a cider sauce and served with baked potatoes and sour cream with a brochette of grilled vegetables. She drank a rose wine with this. I had salad of greens and walnuts and then a gallette of Gruyere, mushrooms and cream. I drank the local cider with this. For dessert, we split a heavenly chocolate mousse. Espresso ended this two hour-long feast.

Having once again fended off malnutrition, we struck out for the coast. It was too pretty not to go to the sea. Our first stop was Longues (called “The Chaos”. I wanted a picture of Barbara with the named sign but none was to be found. What we did find was a small but nice site of gun batteries with an impressive history. This is where the opening scene of ”The Longest Day” was filmed. For a small place there was a lot of tourist activity. I have been impressed at two things during our days here. One, the number of French that are visitors (the majority), and two, the number of what look like high school age kids (French and some British) that cover the exhibits. I enjoyed our time in this small but significant spot.

Moving onward, we went to what had been our original quest. We went to Pointe du Hoc. This was reached by continuing down the D-514 road toward the Utah Beach area. Pointe du Hoc was a very strategic place. It sits on a point so that German artillery could blast away at both the Utah beach to the west and the Omaha beach to the east. The Rangers (like the USA Green Berets now) were assigned this cliff side area to attack and neutralize. They did this with 225 men (90 survived the bitter battle) and a lot of luck. The most impressive thing to me, aside from bunkers with 9 feet of reinforced roofs, was the number of huge shell craters surrounding the defensive positions. Some would hold a two-story house easily. Our guidebook, “Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches” that was written by Major and Mrs. Holt and recommended by Joan Herriges, was and is, a great resource for information. This said that on 6 June 1944, the fields around Pointe du Hoc must have been the nearest earthly equivalent of hell.

After Pointe du Hoc, we rode through some of the nice Normandy country back to our home in Bayeux. Tomorrow, packing and a last look at this interesting place.

Mrs. Chillcott was over to say goodbye and ask if we had a nice time in their home. (parts of this house are 400 and another part 200 years old)!

Normandy, Part Three

2007-05-03T09:53:00.000+02:00

17 April Tuesday

Up and out on our way to Arromanches, a coastal village not far from Bayeux. This was the British landing site at Gold Beach. More importantly, it was one of two sites where artificial harbors were erected. These were absolutely required to continue a logistical flow to the troops once they landed and to enable them to advance with good supply lines in place. These harbors were the brainchild of Churchill who told his staff not to argue about this because the problems would speak for themselves as they arose. Basically, the idea was to sink old ships in a row near the beaches, then sink massive concrete caissons (displacing 6000 tons of water each) inside these breakwaters to form a harbor wall. All of this was built in England and towed across the channel to Omaha and Gold Beaches. This whole outfit weighed over 1.5 million tons, and it consisted of over 400 hundred pieces.

In the space of less than two weeks after D-Day, the harbors were up and running. Then the Fit Hit the Shan, and a huge 3-day storm hit both areas. The Omaha harbor was destroyed, but the one at Arromanches survived to serve as a lifeline for the landed troops. The town’s nickname is now, “Arromanches, Port Winston.”

The D-Day Landing Museum in the town is a good place to learn about all this history, and the movie shown with English headphones makes the whole engineering marvel clear. I came away awed at the possibilities. What if there had been only one harbor and that had been at Omaha? Another Dunkirk or worse could have happened. What if the whole idea had been a bust? It had never been done before. What if the Germans had had the wherewithal to defend and/or destroy the beachhead?

We met a man and his friend (a nice Brit lady) at the museum. He was a long-time visitor and dropped a pearl on us. Apparently, a new German underground bunker has been discovered at a village down the coast. It has opened as a site that was sealed when the Germans left until recently. It was a trip for another day.

Arromanches is like any other seaside resort today. Lots of glitz, restaurants, shops, etc., but our visit was a real revelation in more ways than one.

On down a rural Normandy road, we came to a jewel of a spot, the village of Port-en-Bessin. It was past lunchtime, so we were on the hunt. We parked, and Barbara led me like a dog on a leash to a place she had spotted. La Marie du Port was a find for us. The service was fine, the food delightful, and we came away laughing with the staff. Barbara had a big bowl of steamed mussels (this is a seafood fishing village) followed by a lovely looking piece of skate, some cheese, and a crème brulee that was totally illegal. This cost us 22 Euros. Now for me, I was not so hungry since I had more breakfast, but I decided to have a plate of of what I would call a fisherman’s platter in Newport. I knew that it was not fried because I had seen nothing fried in the place. Here came a tower on which the lower level sits silverware, an oyster fork, a crab pick, a tub of mayonnaise (homemade), and a finger napkin. On the upper level in a bed of seaweed, sits a platter of seafood. 9 raw oysters on the shell of small/medium size, 9 conch in their shells, 2 spiny lobsters, several shrimp of normal size, a dozen tiny shrimp that were the size of peanuts, a half stone crab with body and claw meat with tomaley (eggs/roe), and 9 opened raw clams. With this came lemon wedges, and two bowls for the shells. The sauce for any and all besides the mayo was a vinegar and shallot mixture (I suspect weakened with some white wine). I paid 25 Euros for this “light lunch.”

When we were on our way out to get the car, we found a good place to watch our lunch being sold as it came off the boat. The guy there could shell a scallop like lightening.

Then we took a trip along a rural road right out of “Au Chocolat” to the Normandy American Cemetery at St. Laurent, a few miles down the way. This for me is where it got serious. I remember neighbors in my neighborhood that lost sons. Some who came back for burial and some who were “missing.” A memory is all they have. No grave to visit. There are 172 acres given by the French to house graves of over 9,000 soldiers, of which over 300 are unknown here. The known are marked with names, states, ranks, assignments, and dates of death. Some are even from territories like Hawaii (not a state then). The unknown are simply marked “A Comrade in Arms known but to God”. Christians have a marble cross and Jewish have stars of David (we watched a man moving along cleaning them with a cloth). The two brothers who were the inspiration for the movie “Private Ryan” are here.

I saw two older men wander among a few graves, crying. My eyes were not dry. Some of these men lying here might have become criminals or near do wells. Maybe? But what would have happened to the rest of them? What was wasted? What was lost? What knowledge, what talent, what glory was lost by their deaths? What do the survivors think? Are they guilty because they lived?

It is a beautiful place, and I do not regret a single cent of my tax money to keep it as it is!

We left the cemetery and went to the Omaha Beach memorial. The daylong fog was thinning, and people were all over the beaches walking and riding horses. Lots of kids and young people were out to enjoy themselves. I wonder if they have any inkling of the deaths and destructions that once was here where they play.

18 April Wednesday

The weather opened a beautiful day in contradistinction to our fogged yesterday.

Out this morning to Grandcamp-Maisy, a spot on the coast up the highway from us. This charming port lies between Utah and Omaha Beaches, and is the site of a recently discovered underground German battery that just opened on 1 April. This site was abandoned under a yard of soil in a farm field after the Germans fled or were captured in the face of the liberation forces. A British man whose passion is WW II found some aerial maps near the site and noted its location. He went out to the field and just under the soil found the opening to the underground facility and connecting trenches.

There is a website on this at www.maisybattery.com

We found the tourist office in the village with a nice young lady who spoke very good English and knew exactly where we wanted to go. We found our spot right away and a good story also. The lady at a trailer serving as a ticket office gave us the history of Gary Sterne, the British man who brought this about. She gave us a map to use as we traveled the trenches between the different ruins and gun emplacements. There are bunkers with 9-foot thick reinforced concrete, storehouses of munitions, a field hospital (destroyed by bombs), and several 155 mm Howitzer gun emplacements. All of this was covered and camouflaged but connected by trenches.

After the landings by the British Rangers on 6 June 1944, there ensued a 5-hour battle on 9 June to capture the bunker. This was after the Germans spent the previous 3 days firing at the landing troops on both Utah and Omaha Beaches. The Germans were taken as captives after the seizure of the battery. Then the place was forgotten until now.

Gary Sterne found the site, gradually bought the land (owned by 17 different persons), obtained the permit from the town (the mayor is a person who wants WW II forgotten), and just a few days ago, it opened. It is still unfinished, as about half seems to be remaining undiscovered. It was an interesting visit.

Since Barbara was in a serious seizure of crepe withdrawal, we went back into the village and on the recommendation of our ticket lady friend at the battery. She sent us to a nice spot o the edge of the harbor where we lunched on gallettes; a version of a closed crepe, which was delicious.

After lunch, we strolled along the quay to enjoy the spectacular day. It was soon time to move onward to our destination for the afternoon. We wanted to visit a possible spot for a “Right Vacation” rental. This will be detailed in a piece that Barbara will write.

Then after our visit, we got back to Arromanches to see what the low tide and crystal day would show us of the artificial harbor mentioned earlier in this narrative. It was all one could hope to see and only about 8 miles from our manor home. It was a beautiful site, no museum visit, but lots of yummies to buy for us and friends to take home.

We then went home to watch a DVD of the BBC show “As Time Goes By”, snake bite prophylaxis, and plans for a trip to Mont St. Michel tomorrow.

Sunday and Monday in Normandy

2007-05-03T09:44:00.000+02:00

15 April Sunday

Today is moving day. We were off to Dean’s Manor and our apartment. After packing, it was off for some coffee and breakfast. Then we decided to go and see what we could find at the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy in Bayeux. However, it closes from noon until two, and the young man advised us to return then for a longer visit. We made a trip to the local grocery store, which is open on Sundays from 9 until 12:30. The trip was fast because they were closing as we entered.

Then, we headed to our new place to live for the next week. We met a lady walking along the road as we were hunting for the manor, and she turned out to be the housekeeper for Mrs. Chilcutt. Since she was in Caen with her sick husband who is hospitalized there, the housekeeper got us in the apartment and oriented (all in French).

The “Manor” is a large stone house of three stories with a two-story annex attached that is our apartment. It looks like a functioning farm with two barns, a pond full of carp, geese, and other animals as yet unseen. The whole place is old and rustic. To those seeking a condo on the beach, it will be a distinct disappointment. To those wanting the atmosphere of old France close to Bayeux, it will be nice. It seemed like home to me, as it was a near copy of the Idyll apartment I spent a week in before the Alsace tour opened in 2000. I could see that Hal Taussig, our old Idyll friend, would be completely at home here.

After getting into the apartment, we headed back to town (about a four minute drive). It was still early and a good time to explore the practically traffic free old village. This was also a good time to hit our favorite watering hole and Lotto kiosk, La Gitane. It is a favorite of mine because they have Guinness on tap. Barbara likes Stella, a local French beer. Our thirsts slaked, we then drove back to the museum for an enjoyable two and a half hours.

The museum is a nice and extensive exhibit of the battles that took place in and around the area. There is a twenty-five minute film in English three times a day, and all the plaques of explanation are in both English and French. There are several rooms with both equipment (tanks, artillery guns, bulldozers) and poster exhibits. The photographs alone are worth the 4.5 Euro admission fee. It was easy to spend almost three hours there.

After the museum, we drove the circumferential road around Bayeux. This was originally built in the weeks after the D-Day invasion so that all the heavy equipment did not have to travel the narrow streets of Bayeux. Then it was back to the manor for unpacking, happy hour, and supper of fresh fish, purple potatoes, and a dessert of cheese and fruit.

Mrs. Chilcutt had returned from Caen’s hospital with a good report on her husband who has been a diagnostic challenge there for some months. She is a very pleasant lady who has been here with her Colonel husband for 16 years. We enjoyed a glass of Calvados with her, and then prepared for tomorrow’s visit to the American beaches.

16 April Monday

We were up and out after breakfast at home. On the expressway to Sainte Mere Eglise, this is the village near Utah Beach where the paratroops dropped just before the amphibious landings began. A replica of this on the church immortalizes the one man who fell on the local church steeple, then slid downward until his parachute hung on the roof today. It has a nice but touristy appearance even today, and we found the people cordial. The place is a favorite of tours, and you get to see some of the remaining few WW II vets walking around. Not all that come here are veterans of D-Day, but there are vets from WW II. I heard one lady ask a couple, “Were you here?” The man answered, “ No, I Was a pencil pusher. I never saw combat.” She quickly assured him that they were all important.

There is free parking (an anomaly most places), and we visited the tourist office, where a nice lady guided us to restrooms and ATMs. Then we entered the Airborne Museum, which is a great place to spend some hours. We have learned that the museums have great displays and movies well worth the price of a maximum of 11 euros to a minimum of 5 euros. They all have gift shops but you do not have to buy.

We then rode out to some places in the countryside where various monuments to other heroes (they were all heroes) were situated. Then on to the beach called Utah. As we arrived there, it was past lunch. The Le Normandie Restaurant was in front of us. The menu was full of seafood, so we shared some scallops and stuffed clams. This with salads and a coke/beer were a fine lunch.

Just down the path from the restaurant were some old German bunkers, and our first view of the landing beaches with the bunkers built to last (so far) over 67 years. Off then, we went to the Omaha Beach museum. The road along the beach is nice, and this area is basically a summer beach resort with condos like one sees at Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, etc. Little do some of the people know about the history of these beaches. The road is simple but direct. The season was not high, so we enjoyed our ride

Next, we came to the UTAH Beach museum. I liked this because there is a nice museum, but one can wander out and see the vast expanse of what our soldiers came in upon sick from the sea, God can only imagine how scared, and yet ready to fight for us at home (I was 5 years old). WW II is to me, is the first time and the last time that I saw my country meld together in a common cause. We spent a couple of hours there and enjoyed our time. Barbara’s father was a USN Chief, and all she can wonder is where he was on that day. He lived, but no one knows where he was then. There are questions that a lot of us would like to ask.

After a rather circuitous ride through the countryside, we got back on the autobahn and made our way a few kilometers back toward La Cambe. This is the site of a German war dead cemetery, and I found it most impressive. The German War Graves Commission, an organization that maintains German War Cemeteries all over the world, maintains it. There are sites in Europe, Africa, the Far East, and even one in Chattanooga, Tennessee (186 graves). There are 21,139 German soldiers in La Cambe, both known and unknown. Since 2001, there has been 1200 maple trees planted in this memorial. It brought home to us that a soldier, no matter who he fights for, has parents, siblings, spouses, children, and girl/boy friends. Some or all of these are grieved at the loss. To me, it was a bit like going to Arlington.

On a more practical level, we then found ourselves at LeClerc, a grocery store, which could house a subdivision. The variety and choices were staggering. Needless to say, we had an interesting supper before preparing for tomorrow’s adventures.

The First Two Days in Normandy

2007-05-03T09:39:00.000+02:00

Normandy Notes

13 April-Friday

12 hour drive from Sachseln to Bayeux
Euros are expensive in both CHF and US$. There are a lot of nice rest and fueling areas along the roads. There are several toll roads too. Other than a slight misstep in the suburbs of Paris, we stayed on the path.

Chateau de Belle Fontaine is a beautiful old restoration situated in a park with its own lake. We were here for two days and nights.

We took a walk to the village. There are really two areas. The old village and the surrounding industrial development that rarely is seen after you get into the town proper.

We walked the narrow streets, saw the large cathedral, scouted out a possible tour for tomorrow, looked at lots of menus and restaurants, etc.

Found a combo kiosk, lottery parlor and bar that had Guinness on tap, so the thirst was slaked. Restaurants open at 1900, and we found one that looked simple.

Tripes!!! This is a local specialty of Normandy. On lots of menus, but what I had at Le Garde-Manager at 49 rue St. Jean/ Rue Pietonne was the best that I have ever had. It was totally unlike the CH variety as I had been told. Have to try to create at home. Tripes a la Caen is the name.

This dish is made of squares (not strips) of tripe that had been cooked with butter, bullion, onion, thinly sliced carrots, with cloves, kummel seeds, black peppercorns, garlic, and I don’t know what else. It had been simmered a long time, but a pressure cooker will do it well. It is served in a bowl with small boiled new potatoes.

Good red wine and a local Calvados for a “digestif”.

While eating we conversed with a German couple here on a holiday. Talk about irony!

14 April-Sat.

We were in the village early after a nice breakfast at the hotel. More walking the streets and looking at stores, etc.

We visited the Bayeux Cathedral, and then we went the local tourist bureau for a good walking map of the town,

Then we were ready for a tour of the area in a trolley train. This was a good way to find other areas we wanted to visit. Then we went back to the tourist office for some more questions. We learned that there was a Saturday farmer’s market, so we headed for that. The usual wonderful outlay of food (vegetables, meats, breads, and cheeses), flowers, live chickens and rabbits, and likely anything we could imagine.

This was over about noon, and we were foot and leg weary. We went over to a brassiere and bar to have a cool drink. When we entered and said we only wanted a drink and not food, the wait staff saw that the bar was full, so they hopped to making us a table set up for drinks only by removing the tableware and the cloth. When they saw us pull out a phrase book and use our primitive French, they were very cordial and helpful.

Both American and English tourists abound here, and the contribution by those in WW II still remains in the forefront. Consequently, French is unnecessary in this area. One shopkeeper told me that there is more English spoken in Bayeux than French. Of course, this is a tourist town for one and all. The French, Germans (yes they come to see where their soldiers fought and died too), Scandinavians, and others come here for the culture and history.

There is more to Bayeux than WW II history. The place dates back to the 3rd century. In the afternoon, we visited the museum housing the famous Bayeux tapestry. This a 210 foot long embroidery of the history of the Norman invasion of England by William the Bastard, who became William the Conqueror after his victory over the Saxons at Hastings in 1066. The tapestry is a work of art and well explained by the hand phones in several languages.

Again, it was time for a respite. We both were sore from all our walking and the effects of 12 hours in the car yesterday. Across from the tapestry museum was the Tapestry Jardin. This is an outdoor garden spot with some covered areas that has all sorts of drinks and a light menu. We found seats and noted on a far wall, a USA Route 66 highway sign. When the owner brought our espresso and Coke, we asked him about this. It turns out this man, Jerome, is a real fan of the USA, travels there often, and is a friend of Chad McQueen, the son of the deceased actor, Steve McQueen. The two are big car racing enthusiasts Jerome has raced at Le Mans here, and other places in the USA. He was an engaging man who enjoys Americans particularly. He also gave us a restaurant recommendation, which we plan on exploring.

Then it was time for some more walking to find a take home supper and buy some Calvados in case biting snakes attacked our hotel room. This led us to a bakery for some AM treats for tomorrow, a sandwich for each of us, and a wonderful wine and spirit store that had a nice tasting cave in the back. We sampled Calvados that was 4, 10, 24, and 42 years old. The prices rise accordingly but not exponentially, so we took home a bottle 24 years. The difference in smoothness is striking. The store has lots of goodies, and we will return.

After our walk home, it time for licking our wounds and some R&R.

The Blog is Back

2007-05-02T18:35:00.000+02:00

For several weeks now, the blog has been in the grips of some malignant gremlins. After much discussion to no benefit, it seems to have fixed itself! Time will tell.

Being somewaht paranoid, I can imagine all sorts of idiots who would enjoy this interuption, but all of them have not the sense to pound sand, so I will blame the gremlins.

On to the next blog.

A Tax Paradise Shakes Up the EU

2007-03-03T14:21:00.000+01:00

Sachseln is in the Kanton of Obwalden. Obwalden is a half kanton along with Niewalden, its other half. As with all kantons, they are fiercely protective of their independence in the confederation. Matters of education, taxes, etc. are the right of each kanton. The federal government is secondary to them in many ways.

Last year, Obwalden dropped their corporate income taxes to about 13%. This is well below half of what some kantons levy, and much below countries such as France, Germany and others who charge corporations up to 50% of their income in tax. Kanton Zug has for years, been one of the lowest tax spots in CH, but now Obwalden has become the lowest. No surprise that a definite influx of new corporations have arrived or plan to arrive soon.

The liberal element (mostly in western CH) isn't happy with this tax arrangement because it wants more taxes collected and spent on social programs. The conservative elements (mostly German speaking sections) think lower taxes are OK. The European Union is not happy about this in the least.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU and likely won't be as such for many years, if ever. The Swiss have agreed on a number of "bilateral accords", which are treaties that govern border controls, goods trade, etc. There is no accord on taxation. Therein lies a problem. The EU has gone ballistic when it sees companies leaving the EU to come to Obwalden to pay less tax. This flap has gone on for some months with the Swiss telling the EU to butt out of the kanton's business, and the EU saying that the treaty on trade governs taxes too. It is generally agreed that the EU's position is quite weak on that point.

Switzerland's economy demands trade with the EU to remain healthy, so a trade embargo by the EU, although unlikely, would be a disaster. By their common heritages, Germany and Austria are not sure to agree for sanctions like this anyway. Some countries, such as Spain, France, and Germany have such powerful unions and agricultural lobbies that they can bring down a government. The politicians are afraid in those places right now. Since the national strike back in about 1918, the Swiss unions have,by general agreement, used negotiation and mediation to solve labor-management problems.

The EU member with the lowest tax rates on corporations is Ireland. It also is almost exactly that of Obwalden, so I guess a case could be made that what is OK for Ireland is OK for Obwalden. The main sticking point is that the Swiss, liberal and conservative, are not about to let the EU dictate to them from Brussels. It really got sticky a day or so ago when the Swiss President, a left leaning woman, told the EU in a speech that they were really not acting nicely and to clean up their act.

Meanwhile, the individual tax rates here have fallen also but not as much as the corporate rates. That may mean that I will pay less Swiss tax, therefore get less tax credit from the USA and wind up paying more to the IRS. They seem to get you coming and going.

Swiss Tourism, Ladies' Panties, and Fred's Meds

2007-03-03T09:27:00.000+01:00

Well, this has been an exciting week new-wise in CH. First and foremost, Switzerland has come out as the number one tourist competition country in the world (at least of the 124 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum). This is in part due to considerations of security, transportation networks, tourism infrastructure, and overall industry health. This designation is not like winning a beauty contest, but it indicates those countries in which tourism development is most favorable.

Austria and Germany are the second and third in the list. Then come Iceland and the USA, as the top five. CH counts only 7.2 million tourist arrivals per year compared to 49.4 for the USA and 76.0 for France. One of the biggest complaints about CH from the survey was the high prices. France's position is in at least some part due to perceived attitudes against foreigners. Spain is a security worry, and in Italy, there is thought to be a lack of governmental support for tourism.

Now for some other good news. No, I didn't save a lot of money on my car insurance, but I did find out in the USA this trip, that my investment in Medicare's part D saves me some $$ on the few medications that I buy there. I just knew that someday, the government would take care of me.

Last, but certainly not the least, comes the news about the ladies' underwear, which I know that everyone has been anticipating. There is a bar club near the Pilatusplatz (near the center of "new town" in Luzern), that on Sundays between 8 PM and 4 AM will trade a bottle of Italian Champagne worth almost 100 CHF for a lady's panties. It seems that about 15-25 women trade their drawers for some bubbly each Sunday. The name of the bar is "Opera", although you don't have to sing. The head man of the Sociology Department at Luzern University thinks this is an embarrassing business idea, so I doubt you will run into him there.

Things DO/DON'T Change

2007-02-20T17:54:00.000+01:00

I have been in the USA for some time, but now I am back at home. As always, the USA seems more and more a foreign country. Some things do go down well. Things are cheaper as a rule, inventories are huge, people in Alabama seem more open and friendly, and a car will pass you on the approach and there is a wave from a perfect stranger. Some stores are always open. A visit to a Walmart Super Store at 5 AM is no problem, etc., etc.

Sadly, it becomes quickly evident that the USA has basically no mass transit outside of the large cities. Even those cities with it, still have most of the citizens riding (or standing in jams) in cars with one person in them. Gasoline is dirt cheap by European comparisons, and pollution is rampant. Recycling, except in a few places, is a token effort.

Someone has said that if you want to feel good about yourself, go to a Walmart. That amuses me, but I doubt its veracity. I am a Walmart groupie when I am in the USA. Often I make daily trips. There are still a few things that we get to take back to CH. Interacting with the sales people gives one a great insight into the hospitality of the South. I found people of all sorts to be polite and helpful. Once again, it impresses me to see the great volume of inventory.

I always meet someone that I know in the Alabama Walmart. It is usually an old patient or hospital worker. This time was no different, but it had to wait until my last trip before leaving to come home. L was a long time scrub nurse in the OR where we did most of our cases. When things began to get tough during a case, L had this habit of beginning to moan lowly. More than once I had told her that I didn't need that, especially at those times. She was, in spite of the moaning, always a great help who knew what she was doing. Anyway, there I was, looking for masking tape, and she walks up and says, "Are you who I think you are?" Then we knew each other immediately. L hasn't had the easiest life, but she is going to be a grandma for the first time and is already foolish about it. We had a great chat, and I got to meet the pregnant daughter who is one of those women who look more beautiful pregnant. It was a lot of fun.

People in the USA as a whole, seem less able to respect another person's opinions now. I didn't get into any fights though. It seems that the waves as one passes by in a car persist no matter the politics.

Childhood Fears

2007-01-07T18:51:00.000+01:00

The two things that I feared as a young child were darkness and thunder. I doubt that that makes me unusual. Upon learning about my fears of these things, my father used a conditioning method to help me.

One or two nights per week, he and I would go into a bathroom. I would sit on a laundry basket while he sat on the side of a tub. It was pitch black in there, but with him along, I was not so scared. We would sit in there for a few minutes while he talked about how the dark was harmless and asked me to see that he was correct. I don't think that it took many of these sessions until the fear was gone.

With the fear of thunder, he took the same approach. In the summer, West Tennessee has some thunderstorms that are dillies. We used to sit out in our yard in metal lawn chairs as a thunderstorm approached and watch the lightening bolts while listening to the peals of thunder. This was not a very wise thing to do, but we did it. He told me the story of Thor, the Norse god who used a hammer as a weapon and threw it at his enemies. The hammer made a terrific noise and struck great sparks as it hit. This was thunder and lightening. Norse gods did not harm humans, so I was not afraid. I could visualize the god Thor, racing along in his chariot while throwing the huge hammer at his adversaries. I did develop a liking for thunderheads and the storms that persists to this day.

LINK

It is ironic that much later in life, one of my most admired mentors was another Thor, but that is another story.

The fears passed, and to that, I must credit my father.

Oh My, My!!

2006-12-21T09:57:00.000+01:00

Today, I read in the Atlanta newspaper that another instance of child abuse has occurred in an Atlanta area school. This damnable deed took place at the hands of a fourth grade teacher right in a public place too.

It seems the perpetrator advised the class that while on a field trip to The Atlanta History Center, if anyone's behavior was out of line, they would be tied up. That was her first big mistake. Issue a challenge like that to a bunch of fourth graders, and you will have them lining up to get tied. Well anyway, it wasn't long into the trip when this kid leaves his partner and goes to the back of the line to speak with a friend (no doubt about some cultural tidbit that he had picked up). The teacher, true to her word, lashes a jump rope to his wrist. As is wont to be, there were soon four other boys soon tied in tandem with this first kid.

The beast in charge here later ties the rope to her pant's belt loop (not a good idea if five boys decide to run for it, but she did it). After one kid complained of his wrist being uncomfortable, they were released. One of the boys casually mentioned to his mother at the dinner table some days later that he had been tied up by the teacher. Well, that will always get your attention. After all, how many teachers overtly are into bondage/submission activities? At that point, it really hit the fan. The teacher is now into counseling, and other unspecified remedies are likely. Of course the kid is scarred for life, has nightmares, suffers in intersocial activities, would have loss of consortorium if he was old enough, and in general is just a mess. He would be suicidal if it were not for the fact that he and the four others are legendary heroes in their class.

Well, this tale of disgrace reminds me of my earlier school days with Mr. H. I was in the seventh grade, not the fourth, when Mr. H taught us USA Geography. Part of our instruction was to learn the USA states with their capitols and their spellings. Mr. H made this into a game where we turned down a person next to us if they misspelled or otherwise did not know a state or capitol. We enjoyed this. Mr. H (the ogre that he was) also said if we missed a question, we would have to stay in detention to study what we had missed. Nobody wanted that. He did give another choice to the boys in the class. The boys could skip detention if they chose to take licks (with a paddle, not a tongue-don't get all prurient on me). Mr. H was a football coach and fit the physical bill for that, so we knew that his arm wouldn't give out.

Of course, Mr. H violated a feminist rule by not allowing the girls a choice of licks, but that was another day and time. Some of the more hardy girls wanted this option, but it was denied them. As I recall, no boy ever opted not to take licks in lieu of detention. We all survived and revered Mr. H as a good guy. We also learned the states and capitols.

Back to the present, is it any wonder that we have twelve year old boys raping ten year old girls? After all, no one would ever really punish them, would they? If kids do not learn the unpleasant things associated with failing to obey the rules, won't they do just as they please without a thought of the consequences?

This is an admittedly old fart attitude. I guess that I am just not young enough to be as smart as some.

You Never Know

2006-12-14T16:43:00.000+01:00

Just outside of Luzern is a community called Emmenbruecke. It makes the headines every so often when it denies Swiss citizenship to Turkish or Eastern Bloc people who have sometimes been here for two or even three generations. A lot of Swiss are horified at this discrimination. At one time there was a move about to eliminate the rights of communities to be the ones that grant citizenship because of some of their actions.

So today in the newspaper, I wasn't a bit surprised to read that a Christmas musical play was taking place at a local school where most of the fourth graders are either catholic or protestant. What did blow me away was the interviews thay had with the two kids who are cast as Mary and Joseph. Each child is a Muslim! They are proud to have a leading part in the play, even though they readily admit that Christmas means nothing more than a holiday to them.

How about that for intergration? Wonder if a Christian could ever play Mohammad?

Only in the Laboratory

2006-12-10T10:58:00.000+01:00

Now, I can wonder if I haven't heard it all. In the Sunday new York Times Magazine, I ran into an article about E. coli Wipes. E. coli is big time news these days. We all have read and heard about spinach, and the mess that Taco Bell got into with their scallions. People can get as sick as a blue ox when they ingest certain types of E. coli. Some may even die. E. coli is everywhere in our environment.

These two scientists at Cornell University have developed a wipe made of a coating that when dipped in another solution shows the prescence of some bacteria. So far the number of infectious agents that can be identified is limited, but one strain of E. coli does show up. They also are working on a "non-dip" system to make use of the wipes easier.

This sounds good, BUT I have a few reservations. Unless you are in some sort of clean room like that found in some hospitals, bacteria and virus abound. Even the clean rooms are not sterile. Can you imagine a wipe of a car door handle, a set of keys, an armrest on a bus or airplane? Pathogens are all around us, and our bodies are invaded numerous times a day. Brushing your teeth has been shown to cause bacteria to enter the bloodstream. The possibilities are endless, but in the majority of invasions the body uses its natural defenses to rid itself of these agents.

Could this turn the population into a mass of Lady Macbeths? Can you imagine the gallons of hand sanitizer people will carry around? There would be long lines at sinks for handwashing (still the single most effective disease prevetion method of all). How about running a wipe over your sweetie's lips before a kiss or holding hands? No one would venture into a public place since a wipe would prove it to be a pesthole. Airline travel would be for only those willing to get into special suits that would exclude all contamination (airplanes are still one of the truest forms of pestilence delivering agents in this world). Of course, any idiot that could pound sand would be wiping down all the scallions in taco Bell. These are just a few examples.

This could be one of those discoveries that is best relegated to the trash heap of history. Just a thought.

RJ and the Death Celebration

2006-12-08T11:29:00.000+01:00

In the old days, while I was a pre- medical undergraduate student, I went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. After being admitted to the medical school, I moved on to the medical units in Memphis.

To get to Memphis there were several hoops through which one had to jump. Grades, MCAT scores, etc. were important. Not the least important was to get by RJ and her physics course of three quarters. There seemed to be no way to get to Memphis without decent grades in physics. I had a great high school physics teacher, so I didn't worry a lot. That is, I didn't worry a lot until I got the scoop on RJ's course.

This lady was an old maid, ugly as homemade sin, smoked like a chimney, and hated men, especially those men aspiring to become doctors. I might mention that in those days, a teacher smoking in class was acceptable. RJ had a penchant for reminding her classes of pre-med students that they weren't going to get to Memphis without getting by her. She likely would have been a good teacher if she had not had these hangups. Her students were in her class always. No one would have cut her class if they had been half dead.

Her quizzes were always unannounced and took on a bizzare turn. She would enter the room, write a question or questions on the board, and then light up a Lucky Strike. When she put it out, the time was up. Traumatic at best describes her knowledge assessment by this means. It so happened that I liked Knoxville so much more than West Tennessee that I went to school there in the summer time also for two years. The last year, my faculty adviser suggested that I take the first quarter of physics that summer. I signed up only to find that RJ was not teaching it. I figured one quarter down wouldn't hurt when I met RJ in the fall. It turned out that in the fall, she taught the first quarter physics, and the summer teacher followed on with our second quarter.

I cannot say that missing RJ was something that I regretted, but it turned out that was not to be anyway. The week before classes started that fall, RJ died! That's right, went toes up, cooled it, left for stiff city, etc. Well, that didn't matter to me, but I was told that both medical fraternities in Memphis left classes early and threw a big party. Somehow, I think that RJ would have liked that.

Third quarter physics is another blog.

Gigli's First Day at Work

2006-12-02T15:27:00.000+01:00

OK, it was not my first day, but it was my first Sunday on call. I had been a neurosurgical resident for about four days. The resident staff was only four. Being on call meant that I was in the hospital for twenty four hours straight, 8AM until 8AM. There was no scheduled surgery or diagnostic studies on Sundays, BUT Sunday was a big admission day for patients to have studies the next day or for surgery in the following days.

We had about twelve staff neurosurgeons to cover, both admissions and inpatients. We did not have to make rounds on all. The resident for each staff man did that on Sunday himself. The "on call" man was there for his own patients, new admissions, and emergencies. Aside from a few morning hours, he was the only resident there. The census usually ran about 50-70 patients in critical to all most well condition. Sundays off were precious. Unless you had active arterial bleeding, you did not ask your fellow residents to cover for you.

So there I was. New kid on the resident staff, first on call Sunday, and raring to go. Well, I didn't have to wait long. A little before noon, I got a call from Pappy. Some of you may remember Pappy from some other of my blogs. Suffice it to say that Pappy was the grand old man of southern neurosurgery. He was a bit behind the times at almost 80 years, but he was sharp as a pin. Anyway, he told me that his grandson had fallen at home and cut his knee. His daughter was bringing him in for me to sew up. He went into detail about how I was to do it, what antiseptic to use, and so forth. I had, by that time, considerable experience in suturing cuts as a student, intern, and general resident, but I assured him that it would be no problem. In the next breath, Pappy says that a dear friend of his has had a stroke (we took care of any/all strokes then) while in the hospital. Pappy said he liked to really be aggressive with strokes and would I go up to his room and do a stellate ganglion block on him. Well, a stellate ganglion block on a stroke is about as non-aggressive treatment for a stroke as it could get, but I wasn't about to give Pappy any flak about it. I also didn't tell him that I had never done a stellate ganglion block. I knew where to go look it up, and after all, I here to learn.

Sewing the kid up was a breeze. He was a great patient. I swung by the medical library and checked out stellate ganglion blocks, called the floor and told them what I needed, and went up to see the patient. He had been stroked since some time in the night before, so any treatment wasn't going to change things. Still and all, I did my first block on a stellate ganglion and got a nice block. This had taken me until about noon. Then things began to really pop.

Another staff man called to let me know that another stroke (fresh this time) was on his way in from a town not too far away. This staff man WAS aggressive. He told me to do an angiogram, and he would be in to see the patient. Well, I had been taught angiography as a neurosurgical intern, so I got busy in x-ray, did the study, and had it ready for the staff man when he arrived. Turns out this guy needed an operation and it was several hours before we got done with that. As I was finishing the dictation and the post-op orders on this man, I get an emergency call from the nurse on the neurosurgical floor. A patient of the professor's had gone bad. I rushed to the room, and indeed, the poor lady was brain dead. In those days, I didn't have a lot of experience with brain death, but I knew it when I saw it. We did a few cursory things for the family's benefit, and let nature run its course.

Now it was about 5PM, and I had yet to see any of the steady flow of admissions that had collected with the nurses on the floor. The grand total turned out to be TWENTY FOUR. Each of these patients had to be seen, orders written or checked, given a physical exam, and given a DETAILED neurological exam. Some were straightforward, while others were not. At 2 AM Monday morning, I got to my last workup of the day. I had been waking folks up since about 10 PM the night before, so I was surprised to cruise into this last patient's room at 2 AM only to find him sitting up in a chair reading the paper. I apologized for being so late, and he said, "Doesn't bother me a bit, doctor, I work nights anyway". After that, it was a relatively peaceful early morning. The next day, my resident mates were all amazed at what I had done the day before, but I think they were not sorry to not pick up the left overs.

Well, I thought if each Sunday on call was going to be this way, I might want to rethink my choice of specialty. It turns out that the first Sunday on call was the worst of my coming four years. They weren't all easy, but after that baptism of fire, I could handle most anything.

Tipping

2006-11-26T09:32:00.000+01:00

I happened upon a New York Times article that was a guide to tipping in the big city. Now, I am not what I consider to be a tightwad, and I have on some occasions enjoyed tipping someone who was of real help, or who just happened to be downright pleasant when they did not have to be. That said, I generally abhor tipping. I look upon it as a subsidy that I pay instead of an employer paying a decent wage. What's more, a once optional item has now become obligatory, at least in the USA.

Going by the NYT guide, I figured what an arrival by cab to a hotel in "The City" would cost if I came from the airport and had lunch after checking in. Figuring tips only after I was in the cab, it breaks down like this.

30$ for the cab plus 5.40$ tip (If a range was given as 15-20%, I split it)
1.50$ for doorman
4$ tip for bellboy (2 bags)
2$ for maid (per day)
4$ for concierge (dinner reservation for the evening. Up to 10$ for special services)
4.50$ for waiter at 25$ lunch
2$ for bar man (2 Martinis, about 9$ apiece--what else do you drink in Manhattan for lunch?)

So it costs me 23.40$ in tips for my first few hours. Then there will be a tip for the cab and the waiter at least that evening, so 40-50$ is not out of reach for the whole day, just in tips.

Now this is just for one person. Double the bags, lunch, and drinks, and close to 50-60$ isn't unrealistic. What did I get for all this? Likely, nothing! If I had tipped no one and gotten through the day still alive, these people would have done what I asked anyway.

So, who benefits from my involuntary donations? The employees usually pool tips in bars and restuarants. I don't know about bellboys, doormen, etc. The cab driver does not. The big winner here is the employer. He has me to subsidize his costs.

Dr. McKeown and nitrous oxide

2006-11-17T19:55:00.000+01:00

One of my memories of life in the 1950s was my dentist that used nitrous oxide for pain relief during procedures. Dr. McKeown and my dad had practiced in the same building in Memphis during the depression. They swapped services to each other and their families. My dad got dental care for he and my mother, and Dr. McKeown got eye care for he and his wife. Later the dental care extended to me. I don't think the McKeowns had any kids.

Anyway, we would make a trip to West Memphis, AR and get dental checkup and work. The thing that I loved about going to him as a dentist is that he used nitrous oxide as a way to make procedures painless. You put a nose mask on and breathed through your nose if something began to hurt. If you felt the lights going out, you just breathed through your mouth. Worked like a charm.

Nitrous oxide is also known as laughing gas. Later, in medical school, I would see people come out of the nitrous laughing, and I remember us holding down "Sarge", a gender confused member of a class while giving her nitrous on an OB table. She laughed her ass off. We learned that in the early days, nitrous parties were held by medical students.

All I can say is that the stuff is great for mild pain relief in a dental chair. It also made me laugh as I awoke. I don't mean snicker. These were big and robust belly laughs from the toes upward. Dr. McKeown and his assistant would just shut the door and laugh with me.

The Vent

2006-11-16T10:22:00.000+01:00

The Vent is a series of columns in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They appear six days a week. There are six vents, a living, a daily, a University of Georgia, a Georgia Tech, a general sports, a Braves baseball, and a Falcons NFL vent. Only the daily vent is, as expected, printed daily. The rest are on an as received basis.

A vent is a short (one or two sentences) comment on something. There is no publication of names, acknowledgements, etc. of a vent. They are emails mainly. A vent is just a way to ventilate one's feelings on any topic. I have seen no profanity, etc. so those must get put in the round file. There is a place to click to send your own vent in to them. I have been published three times.

A lot of vents have to do with local news, but many touch home on a wide variety of social and political aspects of life. About once a week, I find one that makes its way into my signature file. A lot of them are truly priceless bits of philosophy.

I think you have to sign up for the AJC to read the vents, but it is free. I use some dumb user name and an email address that I keep just for spam catching. I have never gotten spammed by the paper. The address for The Vent appears above.

JV and Me in the ICU

2006-11-13T21:13:00.000+01:00

JV and I were in the ICU one night. We were on call. He was an internal medicine resident, and I was a general surgery resident. In those days, if a patient needed a cut down to get access to a vein, a general surgery resident did it. There was a big Tennessee football game that night. JV and I were both big fans. He may have been a bit more radical that I, but it was close.

Anyway, he had called me to come and do a cut down on an elderly man who was "low sick". The old guy needed a cut down, so I got the nurse to get me a tray for one. JV had a small portable radio with the Tennessee game playing. It was a particularly important game, and things were really tight with suspense. JV and I were both enthralled. The nurse brought the tray, but we kept listening.

The old patient was awake and could hear and see what was going on. Suddenly, he sat up and said, "Are you boys going to listen to that damn ballgame or try to get me well?" We both cracked up and got busy doing what we were supposed to do.

Old Classmates

2006-11-13T18:50:00.000+01:00

One of the most unpleasant aspects (to me at least) of "getting on in years" is hearing and seeing old friends get older and, as they say here in CH, starting to "close the circle of life". Mortality is a fact, no doubt about it. As I have said before, one would be a fool to wish for life to never end.

Our high school class will have its 50th reunion next summer. The group has been particularly good about maintaining contacts, and email plays a big part of that now. We get emails when someone is sick or has died. Now one member has been designated as the contact for everyone to pass on information to about the members who die or have some illness. She then emails almost a hundred of us. I guess that I like this. At least next year at the reunion, I won't have the unpleasant news put on me all at once.

Dr. F's Mid Term Exam

2006-11-12T13:38:00.000+01:00

Dr. F was a fine teacher of Gross Anatomy, however, we could not be sure that there was not a quiet malignancy in his manner at times. It was little comfort to start a new quarter without at least one or two "retreads" joining us. Retreads were students who had busted a subject and were allowed to repeat the whole quarter. Unless you were a real mental case, most everyone could get a chance ONCE to repeat. The faculty of each quarter held a grade meeting after the final exams had been graded and discussed each student and their grades. Boy!!! Wouldn't you think that would be interesting!

Anyway, a mid term exam was usually worth about 40% of your grade in a subject, so they were respected. The day of our written mid term in Gross Anatomy, Dr. F wrote on the blackboard ONE question! "Compare the upper and lower extremity."

We were all stunned. There were as a rule, 20+ questions on the two hour exam. We all thought at once, "One question means one right or one wrong". Pass or fail. Well it was not the case, but it was the first thought. Panic began to set in.

I thought what the heck, I can only bust the exam once. Then it struck me. Both extremities are made up of bones, blood vessels, muscles, nerves, as well as external landmarks. I took my little blue exam book (remember those?) and drew a line down each page with upper on one side and lower on the other. We had learned the lower extremity anatomy just six months before, so one had to consider what we learned then as well as the recent weeks. After that, it wasn't too hard. The structures are comparative even though they have different names. We had two hours.

Afterwards, there were the usual post exam worries. "Had I put this or that?" "Had I left out this or mistaken something for another structure. Some guys were distraught. It was a week before we met to receive our papers back. The grades ranged from the 20s to above 90. Dr. F was apologetic for having thrown us a loop, and I believe he was genuine. He was reassuring to those that had failed and praised those who had done well.

What was my grade? I don't remember exactly, but it was over 90. There was no one in the class that could not have passed, if the panic had not taken hold of them.

Thyroidea Ima

2006-11-09T19:16:00.000+01:00

This is a story from long ago. Once upon a time, I was a medical student. In the second quarter, we took gross anatomy of the head,neck, and trunk. It was a lot more fun than the first quarter which was the back and lower extremity. This is where the more interesting stuff resides. We named our cadaver "Earnest" so we could always say that we were working in dead earnest.

We had not been in the lab more than a week when we found out that "cutthroats" were not looked kindly upon by fellow students or professors. A "cutthroat" is/are student(s) that have some knowledge of a fact and do not share with their compatriots. This could lead to an unfair advantage, and at least the appearance of such. After all we had done to get to medical school, it just wasn't done. A class with cutthroats was always a bad class.

In the gross anatomy lab one day, our group of four found a structure that wasn't supposed to be where it was. It was an artery coming right off the arch of the aorta and running into the neck. After combing our books, we called the lab assistant over and asked him. He did not know. He got the professor, Dr. F to come over, and he identified the artery as the Thyroidea Ima. In 1-2 % of people, this remains after birth from an embryonic vessel to the thyroid gland.

OK. So now it was time give our classmates a quiz. We started with the ones who were always at the top on quizes, etc. We asked them over to our table in small groups, and nobody had a clue. When everyone had been puzzled, we told them what it was. A couple of weeks later, we had a lab practical exam. This is a test where you have a sheet of paper with numbers on it, and you go from cadaver table to cadaver table finding small tags attached to structures. You then name the structure or answer a question about it on the paper. Our Thyroidea Ima Artery was tagged.

A day or so later, Dr. F passed the papers back and as he came by our table, he said, "Gentlemen, I placed the tag on the Thyroidea Ima to see if you were cutthroats. I am happy to say that your fellow students got the correct name as well as yourselves. I like that."

Our mid-term written exam was another story that will come later.

Ah, Good Old Politics

2006-11-08T17:31:00.000+01:00

Another election has come and gone. We can now enjoy a bit of quiet after all the name calling, dirty tricks, and general BS that characterizes these things every time. That there was a shakeup to not many of us surprise. After 12 years, a few things needed a shake. I am basically a conservative, but not a radical rightist by any means. As I look back over my 68 years, I cannot think of a thing that one or the other party has done that has impacted my life in any fatal way. Overall, great calamity has not befallen me, or the country as a whole, no matter who was in the main position of power.

Why is that? I think it all goes back to the people who were beyond ordinary wisdom in framing the constitution of our country. I believe, and am fond of reminding people, that the USA did get get started by the Cream de la Cream of Europe. Most of the early settlers came to the New World out of need, not to start a new country with the best brains in the world. Most were not criminals, but some were just that. A lot were honest and able to work hard, but because of religion, inheritance laws, etc. in Europe, they could not have a good life and stay there. So, it was mixed bag of new people who came. There were not that many with an education of any kind beyond basic, if at all. I do not recall seeing any reports of how many went back, but it must have been very few.

There were some who were the exception, and we better be awfully glad that there were. They may have been aristocrats, and that may not sound so good, but they were good. Men like George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, and Patrick Henry were able to put together a constitution that, so far, seems to have thought of everything. That is a big reason why I don't worry too much about which party gets the nod. No matter how many "kooks" of any persuasion are elected, there is one or two other governmental divisions to hold them back from stupidity.

I have to wonder how many "suppose this happens" were discussed by those men. I also really would like to have 30 minutes with them to see what they think about today. Flabbergasted, I am sure, but I think also they would be very proud of their ideas.

Rats and Red Wine

2006-11-05T09:47:00.000+01:00

There is a new report out on red wine. Many of you know that red wine drinkers are supposed to derive cardiac and vascular benefits from their imbibing this beverage. Well, listen up, this is just in!! Red wine fed to rats, that's right rats, also gives them health benefits and longevity. Isn't that just the most comforting thing you have heard all day?

Now, I may be in the minority here, but I haven't had a pet rat in years. In fact, I have NEVER had a pet rat. I doubt that my feelings on the subject will change either. I still think that those of you who love the the little rodents will be comforted by this bit of reassuring knowledge. Just think, little Felix, Marie Theresa, or whatever the rat's name is, will have a longer and healthier life if you can just get it to suck up a little of the grape each day.

Heaven forbid that some of the little pests will develop an appreciation for vintage, hybrids, or localities associated with red wines.

Bozo's BBQ

2006-10-25T18:41:00.000+02:00

In Mason, Tennessee between Jackson and Memphis there is a restaurant called Bozo's BBQ. It is on Highway 70 which used to be the main drag between the east and west coasts of the USA and runs the length of Tennessee. As a kid traveling with my parents, we always timed a trip to or from Memphis to coincide with lunch or supper there. The place was always crowded, and the BBQ was wonderful. The arrival of Interstate 70 bypassed Mason, and I thought no more of it until fifty years later.

A couple of years ago, Barbara and I were near Mason and went to see if the place was still there. I was pretty sure that it remained because I had Googlized it, and it had a webpage. It was only a couple of miles off the interstate, and there Bozo's was! It looked like it always had except that the parking lot seemed smaller.

I am here to tell you that Bozo's BBQ is still going strong, has great southern style food and hospitality, even sold me a Bozo's ball cap. Next time you are in Mason, Tennessee, drop by.

ER Memories

2006-10-25T18:38:00.000+02:00

When I was a rotating intern after graduation from medical school, we were assigned a 2 month rotation in the Emergency Room. Nurses and interns staffed the place. Residents were available if you called for a consult. We saw about two hundred patients in a twentyfour hour period. We each worked twelve hour shifts. Fortunately, there were interns who were working ER as their last rotation, as well as those of us who were just starting. I had already had two months of pediatrics, so that came in handy. We all consulted each other. This was in the days before Medicare/Medicaid, so the care we gave was free.

At that time, there was a new ER being built where the old one had been, so we practiced ER medicine in a single hallway of a clinic building. This was christened The Black Hole of Calcutta. It was cramped and crowded at its best, and absolute chaos when things got busy. There was one intern almost finished with his internship who was a whiz at triage. He sat by the lady who registered the patients and quickly sorted out who needed what. A lot of bad colds and sore throats went with a prescription without having to be examined quickly to make the same diagnosis.

ER duty was both hard and easy. Long periods of boredom treating lacerations, skin eruptions, etc. Interspersed with cases where lives were saved in minutes. Saturday nights in Memphis could be hell on wheels. Gunshot wounds were common. I helped a general surgery resident open a young warrior's chest on the floor of the ER to plug up a hole in a pulmonary artery, did a bedside traction on a man whose adversary blew his entire face off with a shotgun, delivered babies in the parking lot, and treated all sorts of misery.

There were lighthearted times too. One of the registry clerks was a stickler about anyone going "back" (to our treatment area) without first having the paperwork filled out. One Sunday afternoon, a young man walked in the waiting area with a car's fan blade stuck in his skull. The room cleared in a flash. When this clerk looked at him, she said, "no need to fill these papers out, go right on back". About once a week, an elderly diabetic patient would come in by ambulance in insulin coma. Taking your insulin when you can't or won't eat is a big NO-NO for diabetics, but it was common. To see the family's response to a miracle dose of IV 50% glucose was fun. The patient was literally brought back from the dead in their eyes, and your stock went through the roof with them.

Then there was the homeless woman famous for smuggling razor blades into jail in her "nether parts". She would then cut herself and get a free ride to the ER. The police decided to do a reverse of that, so they started bring her by the ER for a pelvic exam before going to jail. She was always drunk but cooperative. New interns were told to always do a speculum exam before doing a manual.

Officer "C" was the policeman assigned to the ER. He was a likeable but pompous appearing guy who tended to be on the portly side. Once he tried to quell an unruly drunk and almost shot himself in the leg freeing up his weapon. He was quite upset when a pair of ladies panties was found in the canister that was used to dispense iced tea to the ER personnel. No one ever found out who put them in there, or how long they had been in there. There were a few green faces for awhile, and the tea consumption took a dive.

Paricutin

2006-10-25T18:00:00.000+02:00

When I was about 7 years old, my parents bought me a set of Compton's Pictured Encylopedia. I think that they paid about eighty dollars for them, and they were my pride and joy. I frequently went to bed at night reading one of the volumes.

In my rambles through these books, I happened upon the story of Paricutin. Paricutin is a volcano in Mexico. I believe it is the eastern part of the country. It is a young volcano, having popped up in a farmer's field in 1943. Over several years the lava flow completely covered and destroyed a small village except for the top of the church steeple. It still remains active today but is no danger to populated areas.

When I was about fourteen, I went with my parents to Mexico. We went from the USA border to the tip of the country's southern parts. We also went to Paricutin! We drove to a small village about an hour's mule ride from the volcano, spent the night, and my dad and I got up at 4 AM to meet a guide. We rode on mules with wooden saddles. I remember that for sure! When we got to the edge of the cool lava flow, it was possible to get off and walk over to the church steeple at a level of the belfry and walk into it.

There were no people there but us. I'll bet that today, the place is covered with tourist traps.

Mrs. Levy

2006-10-13T11:10:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, I wonder why stuff like this pops into my mind. For some unknown reason, the other night I thought of Mrs. Levy. She was in my life for a few minutes about 63 years ago. That's right 63 years ago when I was 4 years old.

I don't know if there was a Mr. Levy, but there must have been one at some time because Mrs. Levy had a son. I don't know the son's name, and I am sure that I never saw him. I do remember his mother as a nice lady who lived across the street and down about 3 houses from us.

Why do I remember Mrs. Levy? She was the lady who baked cookies for us neighborhood brats on the day she got word that her son had been killed in Germany while serving in WWII. I just remember her bringing cookies out the back door for us on that morning that she became a Gold Star Mother. I wonder what her thoughts were now, but then, I just knew that she baked good cookies and loved us kids.

I remember Gold Stars in the windows of homes where a son had died in WWII. I think that Mrs. Levy's star was a Star of David.

Some of the Things that I Put into my Mouth

2006-10-05T13:02:00.000+02:00

To begin; it is not my purpose to proselytize and encourage anyone to eat anything.

I have always been somewhat of an adventurer in culinary pursuits. At about age two, I became known as junebug because I ate one (I do not, thankfully, remember this). My nanny at the time confirmed this. One of my first adventures were raw oysters. I had seen my dad eat these but never asked for one. When I was about to become an intern, a hospital threw a bunch of us a beer fest. They had a guy opening oysters like a magician, and after a few glasses of beer, I tried one. Wonderful! Later on, I lived in a place where a guy who owned a seafood market and restaurant used to bring oysters back from New Orleans each week. One could get them in the shell to take home and shuck. Both my children were quite young and would stand with me at the sink, while I shucked away. My son loves them to this day. I think my daughter merely ate them to please me. A few years later, we were in a hotel coffee shop in Atlanta, and my son (he was about 8 years old) ordered a dozen on the half shell. The waitress asked if he would eat them, and when I said that he did at home, she asked if she could come back and watch. He is tired of hearing about that, but he can skip that part.

Some years later, I had a colleague who always had a game supper at his house once a year. That's where I was exposed to chitlins and prairie oysters. For those uninitiated, chitlins are a southern delicacy of boiled hog intestines that are battered and deep fried. Prairie oysters are the gonads of hogs or sheep (maybe other animals too) that are cut up, battered, and deep fried. They taste much like chicken nuggets and are yummy. This same game supper used to feature tomato gravy with venison heart in it. Wonderful over a biscuit.

In South Georgia, hunting rattlesnakes is a sport. One of the ladies in our office had a boyfriend who did this. Dressed and frozen, she would bring some to me. I have had it fried, but it tends to be dry. If the snake is boiled (it is VERY odifirous), the meat comes off easily and combined with sour cream and some black pepper, it makes a great dip. I have seen folks who wouldn't eat snake on a bet, scarf this stuff down and ask for the recipe.

After arriving in CH, I tried horse. It is a healthy red meat with almost no fat in it. My Godson's uncle used to be a horse butcher, so we had a ready source. It used to be that horse was not sold except in special markets. Nowadays, one can buy it in any meat or grocery market. It comes in several cuts. You can also buy foal, which is a bit more expensive and like veal would be. Horse is a dish for celebrations. Thinly sliced, it makes a great meat fondue, and a nice inch and one half fillet, cooked on the grill, and topped with some garlic butter will make a bulldog break its chain. My son enjoys horse (Pferd in German), but his wife is horrified when he neighs between bites.

Many years ago, I wanted to see how tripe tasted. Tripe is the lining of beef stomach. In the USA, it isn't commonly sold, or at least I could never find it. I did learn that a Campbell's soup called Philadelphia Pepper Pot contained tripe. I bought some and tried it. It was like eating pure gristle and did not seem to be pleasing on the tongue. I ate no more. Then, some time ago, I was with a friend at a mountain restaurant, when he noted with pleasure that Kuttlen (tripe) was on the menu. He said he did not get that at home because his wife thought that it contained too much cholesterol. He ordered it. The dish looked really good. Strips of tripe, cooked soft, and in a tomato sauce. I asked for, and received a taste. It was delicious! Since then, I have cooked it Napoli style in a pressure cooker. It has a tomato sauce, and I believe there is a recipe for it in The Joy of Cooking. One of Barbara's friends had me over for a Kuttlen lunch, and hers was like mine but with a bit of onion and melted cheese on top.

One of the things that I also enjoy is smoked tongue. While looking for it in the cold cuts section of our grocery, I came onto something called Euter. It looked a bit like tongue, so I bought it. I learned that Euter is German for udder. It must not be a big seller because I have never seen it again. It was nice on a cracker with a little mustard.

Eating is a learned event guided by what we see as we grow and experiment. Each group of people have built in likes and dislikes governed in large part, by our social mores.

The one thing that I cannot abide is boiled okra. My dad and mother ate it, but most of mine ended up in the toilet. I later learned to like it fried, pickled, and (the best), in an African curry.

Would You Believe It?

2006-09-29T17:45:00.000+02:00

While Barbara is away, I have been watching the idiot box a lot. Well, we do that when she is here too. Anyway, two things hit me last night while watching "Prison Break" and one other serial.

First, since when do they have pay phones in prison yards? Did some legal eagle convince them that for inmates not to ba able to phone home is "cruel and unusual"? I wouldn't be surprised. My old dad always had two things to say about people in jails; one, they are not smart or they wouldn't be crooks, and two, jail is not supposed to be fun. I was further convinced of this when Chief Mainord, our town's police chief and neighbor, let me tour the local jail while I waited for the bus on Sunday mornings after Sunday School. Those Saturday night drunks never looked like they were happy. The place didn't smell good, and they all wanted to make phone calls. In that jail, there was no exercise yard. The only exercise that one got was walking in and out.

The other thing that hit me was that, in today's world, a man with hair on his chest is at a disadvantage. When I was a young sprout, I did everything but kiss my elbow, so that I would have hair on my chest, just like dad. Now, he wasn't an ape, but he did have a moderate growth there. The things that I did to insure trichosis on my chest would fill a small book. It was a sign of manhood, and I needed to be a man. The crusts on bread and eating all my carrots come quickly to mind. Later, I learned about genetics, so I still shed a few when I towel off. I am told that men today who want to be attractive get a wax job. I think that would feel a lot like old time adhesive tape being pulled off quickly.

No thanks!

IRS Tables and Me

2006-09-27T18:43:00.000+02:00

Not long ago, I had a chance to see the IRS Longevity Tables while looking at some investment choices.

Blow me away!!! I have a chance, only a chance, no guarantee, that I will live to be 87 years old. Not only that, if I live to be 87, my chances of 88 are great. Now that scares me a lot.

First, I may spend all my money. I DO NOT relish drooling in some Medicare facility (God knows what they will be like if I am 87). I DO NOT relish drooling any where. If my life's experiences have taught me anything at all, it is that there are a lot worse things here "alive" than being dead.

Second, the few friends that I have (my choice) will mostly, if not all, be dead. I have some great children and grandchildren, but that isn't the same as old buddies.

Third, I might not have Barbara. She insists that she will go first, but I keep telling her that the statistics are on my side. I don't want that to happen to me (selfish).

Fourth, I likely will be so gimped up that I won't be able to take a walk. Rocking chairs are fine if you are rocking a baby, but not if you cannot get up out of them.

Fifth, the sphincters will be gone or, at best, lazy. Need I say more? I do not want to do any commercials for Depends! Bob Dole, excuse me.

OK, lets look at the best scenario. I make it to 87, and Barbara is with me. We both can still function as the best 87 year olds can do (maybe better).My children will be in their sixth and seventh decades. My grandchildren will be at least in their fourth decades. That could be a lot of fun! I will most likely be a great grandfather.

Here in CH, people have retained a great deal of respect for the elderly. There is no question that I will be the oldest American living in Sachseln, or, maybe the whole country. That said, this a country of centurions, so I still may be a puppy in comparison.

Now, if I can just figure out a way to get my liver to last. It is already up for a gold medal.

My Friend Octavius

2006-09-22T19:05:00.000+02:00

A new friend showed up the other day. Some would call her Octavia or Octavius. I don't know the gender, so I will leave that question open. I do know that this beautiful, inch long spider has a place in my balcony.

"It" showed up a week or so ago and wove a beautiful two plus feet web over my parsley and basil plants on the balcony. By accident, I disturbed the web, only to find it rewoven the next day. Now, I see Octavius on occasion. It being shy, it usually comes to web center only when some prey needs attention. I have noticed several flys, etc. In the web from time to time. Octavius waits high up in a corner until the struggles cease, and then the arachnid quickly wraps the prey in a cocoon of web for storage.

Yesterday, I observed Octavius having a meal. With one leg holding the fly, it was drained of its juices and then discarded. The picture is not a great one due to using a handheld digital camera at Macro setting. The spider is a light golden color with some black markings on its abdomen.

"OK", What is this?

2006-09-05T09:19:00.000+02:00

What is this with the word "OK"? OK, I know what it means, but why do people use it as a question? "I'm OK" is fine. So is "the game was OK". "Are you OK?", or "is the dog OK?" are fine to use as an interrogative.

I object to people making a statement or request and then following it up with an "OK". "Will you shut the door?", or "Will you call your brother for me?" are fine. Why ask permission to ask a question?

Parents, teachers, and other adults ask children such questions, and then they finish it with an "OK". I don't know when this started in my generation, but it was after I was grown. My parents never asked me "OK" after a request. I knew there was no negotiation to a request; it just got done.

Some might say that being a parent now requires cooperation of the child. I don't think it does. "Close the door when you leave" is a form of instruction, not a point of discussion. Children crave instruction. A friend who used to work at an educational TV station once told me that. Watch little kids when a commercial comes on TV. They will run from one end of the house to the other to stand and watch.

"OK?" is an opening for negotiation. Kids don't know how to negotiate until they are much older. It is confusing for them. Now, older kids and adults may want to negotiate, but a six year old doesn't have a clue.

Oh boy! I know that a lot of people won't agree, but that's why I have my blog.

Obituaries

2006-08-19T12:21:00.000+02:00

I have read obits in newspapers since I was in high school and had the job at the funeral home. It was then of interest to know what the competition had in the way of "bodies" and to proof read the obits of our "clients".

Later in life as a practioner of neurosurgery, obits were of interest for a more practical reason. I needed to know who died out of interest in my patients who were ill or that I had treated in the past. One did not want to meet a member of the family out in public and inquire about how about Aunt Susie was doing, only to be told that she had been dead for months. Not kosher at all.

Now I read obits on the internet dealing with cities in which I practiced, as well as, the local obits in the local papers here. I still have a friend in the funeral home business, and I like to see how his outfit is doing. Why here in CH? Because the obits are so much more a form of art. They are known as "death circulars", and they often have ornate engravings besides the information about the deceased. Some weeks after a person dies, a eulogy appears in an adjacent page to the obits. There are usually 3-4 of these with each issue.

The eulogies are always glowing reports of the person's life from birth onward, with the story on their education, work, marriage, progeny, etc., and only a veiled report of the terminal events. No matter what, these are always crafted to show the person in the best light. Some guy may have been a lothario and an axe murderer, but you will never know it from his eulogy. Terms such as "birth" and "death" are replaced by "first saw the light of day" and "entered a peaceful sleep as the circle of life closed completely".

Bonding???

2006-08-13T17:21:00.000+02:00

A lot of people are heard to say something about two people "bonding". I have tried to pin some of them down about an exact definition without much success. The only definition I could find that comes close to what people must mean is "to have a close relationship based on shared feelings.

That is all well and good, but how does that apply to animals or babies? How can two adults bond if neither knows the other very well? Is bonding permanent? If not, how long does it last? Is it a one time thing? I just am clueless. Are those bonded automatically friends? Is there a difference in being bonded and being friends? Are there external signs of bonding?

I think this must be some sort of a Yankee thing. I hear it sometimes with just a hit of sarcasm in the background. I fear that one would have some degree of trouble on his hands if one proposed to "Bubba" that he and his friend Lester had bonded.

Back at Home

2006-08-09T15:35:00.000+02:00

After what seems a year or so, we are back in CH. Two months in RI were great with a lot of friends and family there off and on. Then a surprise trip to Ireland for a week with more family. Now, I have to get out from under a pile of mail, etc.

CH was in fine shape after we got back. Except for the weeds in the patio garden. The Idyllers continue to come and go, my German has come back (what there is of it), and my old CH friends seem to be well and happy.

The highlights of the summer were having my children and grandchildren with us in RI for almost a month, seeing the others in RI, and of course, the trip to Ireland.

Ireland was a real treat. I have never met such nice people who have such a great humor about them. Even the policeman who caught us speeding was a funny guy (and he did not give us a ticket). The Irish landscapes are beautiful, the weather is ever changing, and the ancient ruins were so stark. The people and the country have had many hard times over the centuries, but their economy is now booming. The best part of the trip was being together with some of the family.

We did different things but always got together in the PM to eat some great dishes and drink some fine beer and whiskey. We never did get some Irish moonshine called "Po Chine" ?sp? I have a pot load of video to work on for a movie about the trip.

Some Hairy Thoughts

2006-06-16T14:38:00.000+02:00

Hair? Who would blog about this vestigial reminder that we once had fur? Well, I for one would. Hair has played a sometimes interesting role in my life.

As a child, my mother took me to the barber where haircuts were twenty five cents, then fifty cents, and then on upward. My barber was Mr. Fly, a nice man who withstood my mother's wrath when cuts got to be seventy five cents. At about age ten, I told Mr. Fly that I wanted a summer cut with the number one cutter (about an eighth of an inch). I assured him that I would take all responsibility. He cut, and then I caught my mother's wrath. She called me a convict and banished me from the house until my dad arrived. He looked at me and said," If you wish to appear as a fool, so be it."

As a fifteen year old, I was the willing victim of some girls who told me that lemon juice and ammonia would do a nice bleach job. I opted for a streak right down the center of my head. A sort of blond Mohawk effect. My mother handled this rather well, by then somewhat used to my hair antics. That evening, she did mention that she hoped it wouldn't make my hair fall out. Relatively sure of myself, I reached up and grabbed a finger full to pull. Lo and behold, it came right out! Panicked, I awaited Mr. Fly for a sidewalk consultation, as he usually walked home from the shop by our house. He told me that he thought the hair would return. It did.

About that same time, I decided that I needed some sideburns. I shaved three or four times a week which was sufficient to get a decent growth by then. I had burns down below my ear lobes, and mother went into orbit. Mt father was smart enough to not forbid the fruits of my follicles, and he placated her sufficiently until that phase passed.

On the hair front, things were quiet until the early sixties, when haircuts went to an all time high of two dollars and seventy five cents. This was more than my budget could handle as a neurosurgical resident, so I bought a haircutting set at Sears and began to do my own tonsorial duties. This led to a permanent (for then), number one cut. As a resident, this saved time in grooming but required an increasing number of cuts to keep the hair under control at the length I wished. It so happened that around that time, I was fortunate enough to have a friend and neurosurgical mentor named Thor Sundt. Sufficient to say that Thor was a role model for a lot of his residents in many ways, was an excellent researcher and clinician, Became the chief at The Mayo Clinic, and by the way shaved his head.

I resisted the impulse for a time, finished my training with my number one cutter hair length, and became a POW of the USNR in Boston at the Naval Hospital, Chelsea. The commanding officer at Chelsea happened to be a short, pudgy, and bald little fascist who fell in love with the fact that I a smooth face and almost no hair while he was exposed to officers and students who wanted all the hair that they could get and still be regulation. My naval career was advanced in no little measure by the fact that the captain used me as an example of good officer material on several occasions.

Several years after the military service had ended, I began in earnest to use the Gillette and entered the cue ball phase of my life which persists to date. I was seated across from a then head of neurosurgery at The Meyer Brothers (our name for The Mayo Clinic). He cracked at me, "Who are you trying to imitate, Thor Sundt?" To which I replied, "Can you think of anyone better to emulate?" That's another story.

While studying for the neurosurgical board exams, I took a month off and decided to grow a mustache. My granddads had mustaches which fascinated me as a young child, especially when they ate corn on the cob. By the time of the exams, I had a nice semi-handlebar present. I did offer to shave it off when one of my old teachers commented on it. Fortunately, none of my examiners knew me and cared less about it than what I knew. A few years later, I spent my time in Saudi Arabia and added the goatee to look royal.

Things have been quiet on the hirsute front for sometime, although I tell each new grandchild when they ask what happened to my hair, that I told my mother a story once, and it all fell down to my chin.

Today's styles make hair a real strike against a man. The beautiful men have to shave or wax their chests. In my developing years, one ate carrots, the crust on the bread, etc. so one would grow up and have hair on their chests. Things change.

A Little of this and a Little of that

2006-06-13T21:48:00.000+02:00

I finally got the new computer up and going. The old one died a short death last Thursday. It bugs me to be so dependent on a machine, but we were both lost without it for emails, finances, etc.

Hit the old Stop and Shop this AM. It is hard to find something to take home to prepare. It is all done for you. The best I could do was some turnip greens (they had these in a can too, must be a Yankee thing because I don't recall these in the South) and some ground beef for a meat loaf. I did get some ready to mix mashed potatoes too.

I also went out to the Newport Country Club to pick up some tickets to the US Women's Open Championship that begins there on 26 June. Boy! They have they spruced that place up, big time! I am a volunteer this year on the Admissions and Will Call committee. Two things really impress me about the event. They are VERY well organized, and they have motivated Newport to really make them welcome. No wonder at that though; they will bring in an extra 100,000 people over the week.

I saved the best for last. I went to the corner post office. The two workers that man the front desk are a real hoot. Both of them are "Rhodies" by speech, but they are also full blown conservatives. Here I thought that I was the only one in town. To hear them discuss topics from anti-histamines curing Multiple Sclerosis to what one lady does for a living is funny. They were all ears when I advised them that cobra venom was good for MS too.

I have a new (to me) cell phone at too good a deal to pass up, but the damn thing goes off several times a night with SMS messages from MY SPACE.com. I am sure that the last owner was either a pervert or else a "lady of the night".

Commercials and Idiots

2006-06-03T12:05:00.000+02:00

I wish I could ask some Madison Avenue advertising people what gives with the commercial announcements (excuse me, the "in association with---") in the USA. For a week now, each time I watch a television program, I get to see a commercial every 5 minutes or so. Now, I understand that advertising subsidizes a lot of television, private and public, but I have a bone to pick with these people. Are they really so smart?

With things like TIVO available now, are they reaching the buying public? Don't most people mute the ads anyway? It is a perfect time for a bathroom break, a trip to the fridge, or a surf through the channels time. Why do I see the same commercial at the same time every day?

In CH, a program must be 90 minutes or longer for there to be a commercial break. Then you get 8-10 minutes of advertising. A 30 minute USA program lasts 20 minutes, and an hour program lasts 40 minutes there. Each is followed by several minutes (up to 10) of commercials. Granted, some are very predictable, but a program such as a movie, a tournament of any kind, the Olympics, etc. is much more enjoyable without this attention deficit-like interruption every 5 minutes. I find myself looking at the products advertised with a much more receptive attitude. Besides, after a week of seeing the same commercial at the same time each day, it gets annoying.

Of course I can almost hear the ad guys saying, "We do it our way because it is better than in the old country." Well, I submit it isn't better, and some of the old ways didn't need changing.

Some Reasons that I Know Where I Am

2006-06-01T15:39:00.000+02:00

It is a comfort to know where I am, especially now that I am past 65.

In Boston, a convicted killer of his wife is claiming "cruel and unusual" because the state is not willing to pay for him to complete his sex change operation. It seems that Robert (now calling itself Michelle) has had part of the procedures but not all. The court has ruled that he could continue but did not say the state should pay. This murderer's lawyer says his client is at risk of suicide if the tax payers don't subsidize his surgery. I guess he strangled his wife because she didn't want to live with another woman. Maybe someone will send him some clothesline.

Ever notice what goes on in a baseball dugout? I don't mean all the scratching, pulling, and patting. I am talking about the spitting, mostly sunflower seed hulls, but also just saliva. It goes on on the field also, but that dugout floor must be a mess after a game's worth of expectorant. Do pros get such a dry mouth?

I am going to have to go to the drug store and check this out. A men's anti-aging "lifting" cream (no, it is for facial wrinkles, dummy). Are men so vain now, that they have to have anti-wrinkle cream, as well as, shave their chests?

Gigli Gets to the USA

2006-05-31T21:58:00.000+02:00

Well, it has been a busy month. We have been in RI now for six days, and it remains a culture shock each time I am here. I am also amazed at how the Spanish language has taken over, even this far away from Mexico. It didn't take us long to realize that if you want to feel thin, just go to Walmart or some similar store.

It seems that Newport has finally gotten on the ball and repaired some city streets. They always do that when the taxes are going up. The sidewalks still remain as they were, and most are older than me. Driving down here from BOS was like being in a science fiction movie when a city is being evacuated. I do not know how people can live like that. The RI folks are still very courteous drivers as opposed to BOS, but our rental has Massachusetts plates on it, so I don't know what that will bring. It was funny to see a guy, obviously from MA lose it today in the 12 items or less line at the grocery store. Of course there were only about 20 people in that line. The best was a woman who was behind me in a regular line with two melons. She had tried to do the self checkout, but the machine said she owed $375.00, and she decided to get a second opinion from a human cashier.

Airlines and airports are now my least favorite mode of travel, but a ship takes too long. The plane ride in a cattle car is tolerable, but the airports are another thing. Once again, the dog tag chain set me up as a terrorist suspect. It always amazes me that a tri or quadralingual man can work as a security guard in CH. USA customs asked about my cigar declaration as if Cubans could be a threat to our homeland. I simply told him that I don't like Cubans, and no issue was made.

The Newport home looked pretty good even if it is over a century old. Now the porch furniture is clean and out, the newspaper has been started, the larder is loaded with foreign foods like coffee syrup and stuffed cherry pepers, and the first guests arrive tomorrow. The entire state of NJ and most of MA and NY were here for the Memorial Day weekend. The Red Sox are on TV with each game, but since they have lost the last three, I may be a jinx. Thank god that we don't have to drive to get to the harbor. I can settle back and read the ridiculous real estate ads now.

Another Tempest in a Teapot

2006-05-10T07:09:00.000+02:00

One of the reasons that I began to blog is that I could say what I wanted to say. Signatures are, and will be, a part of my emails. I have 124 of them in my mail application, and they are assigned AT RANDOM to each email that I generate. I get nearly all my quotes from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution column called "The Vent". It is published six time a week, and I rarely miss one. I am told that it is one of the most popular features of the paper, which, by the way, is a liberal rag. The anonymous venting of opinions has local, as well as, political topics. The political topics run the gamut from far right to far left. A lot of them are amusing to me. If anyone thinks that I am going to go through a message that I wrote and edit it to hopefully not offend some disenchanted liberal, they are mistaken.

I agree that a travel chat is not a political forum. The two women (degraded now from ladies to women) had no business replying to the chat with comments as they did. My email address is between my name and my quote in every signature, so anyone with sense enough to pound sand should be able to send me a private message. My mistake ( I do make some dillys ) was in responding to them and including the chat address. It has happened before when I am pissed about some ding dong response. So it is on bended knee that I acknowledge my humanity.

Do I apologize for disparaging Teddy? In no way! It is sad that the analogy is true, but it is of his own doing. While I lived in Boston for two years, I never heard a kind comment about Teddy, and I wasn't living in some Nazi enclave. I lived is an apartment complex with all kinds of people. One local Massachusetts citizen did tell me once that the whole Kennedy clan was rotten except for young Joe, and he died in the war. After Jack, the gene pool took a definite turn to the south. It looks like there may have been a mutation in the form of Patrick now. He has had the guts to not emulate dad, and he has admitted to his problems, taken steps to help himself, and risen in my sights.

It must be easy to be liberal when you cannot even count up to your net worth. Liberals come in two flavors. Those who have considerable means and want to throw other people's money at problems, and those who want to suckle the government breast. There are exceptions, but only one comes to mind. His name is Hal Taussig. He and I agree to disagree on a bunch of things, but he defines "liberal" in my mind.

To know the "why" of my slant, I can only say that I was raised by independent thinkers who were not a pair of radical right wingers. Regarding "rude", I can only say that you do not know rude. I am never rude, but I can be downright ugly. You cannot have it both ways, I am either nice or ugly. It is like a dip switch; it goes up or down. If you don't wish to see my signatures, block my name in your email application. You may miss an occasional pearl but think of all the peace that you will have. I realize that may require a modicum of computer knowledge which is lacking in some people. It is too bad that superficial computing is so easy. If one had to pass an exam to use a computer, it might lead to a more efficient and sensible situation. Think of all the bandwidth that would be saved!

Someone suggested that I change the subject line, so he would know when to delete. My subject line in the post was appropriate and not misleading. Anyone who knows me will tell you that if I wanted to bash Teddy, I would have made that a subject line. The subject has nothing to do with a quote in my signature. I do want to thank the lady who spoke of Venn diagrams. I thought that she must be smoking something funny until I Googlized the words. Lo and behold, I learned something new for the day.

I guess I might become really paranoid about some of the opinions of my post signatures, if it were not for the fact that the split between pro and con is about 50-50. Most of my "pros" send messages to me privately for their own protection, I expect. These folks are not rabid, and on your next trip, you may sit by one. Nevertheless, I am glad to know that not everyone is a limousine liberal.

Make no mistake, I abhor some of the things that the rights proselytize, and if there had been a choice in the last election, I might have voted otherwise. There was no choice except to stay home or go and waste my vote. One of the things that makes the Swiss political system attractive to me is the multi-party arrangement in the government. One can choose between varying degrees of a philosophy. The one person who says he is a liberal and does not like political correctness really intrigues me. He may honestly have the heart of the matter in his head. Below is a good definition of this from The Vent.

Political correctness prompts the belief that no one should be offended. If you cannot offend anyone, you cannot be controversial. If you cannot be controversial, you cannot have principles. If you cannot have principles, you are a perfect liberal.
AJC Vent

That some people out there feel disdain for me, consider me self-rightous, think of me as arrogant, and do not agree with me, I consider a compliment of the first water. The world would be damn dull if we all were in lock step.

Swiss Humor 2

2006-05-05T15:49:00.000+02:00

From Neue Obwaldener Zeitung .

The little guy is applying for a new job, and the boss asks him why he is looking for another job. He answers that his last boss told him to go to the devil. The boss answers, "and this is why you came right to me?"

Swiss Humor 1

2006-05-05T15:21:00.000+02:00

The Swiss have an unique sense of humor in my opinion. Each day's paper, The Neue Obwaldener Zeitung, carries a great cartoon the illustrates this often.

The one above is an example. Baiscally it is a grandma asking if her grandson would like sugar in his coffee. he says that he does and asks for seven spoonfulls. He then cautions her not to stir it, because that will make it too sweet.

Gigli's Trip to Another Planet Part 4

2006-04-29T15:13:00.000+02:00

The doctors at Al Hada Hospital were much like the doctors in Alabama. Together, it was hard to agree to evacuate a burning building, but as individuals, very nice. A few stand out even today.

Handley Coles became a dear friend, was some years my senior, had to eventually go back to Britain for a second cardiac valve replacement, and later died. Before that, I got a chance to run over to Wales from CH and see him and his wife Patty in their farm home. He was fun to play rummy with, and a classic gentleman pediatrician. He also taught me some very colorful ways to cuss out someone in "English".

Loren Ryan was also a friend. He was closer to me in age, and I never heard from him directly again. I did get hear through others that he and his girl friend, Joella, had bought a bar on a Greek island. I expect that was Loren's motivation for his contract in SA. I hope he hasn't/didn't drink up all the profits. He did show me the only case of leprosy that I ever saw. We had some good times together.

The others are nameless due to time and the fact that I did not keep a journal then. Stupid.

A quintessential psychiatrist, complete with pipe, tweeds, etc. who gave me good insight as to the princes and princesses addictions to everything. He likely had more night call than any of us by far because when the royal family calls, you go.

A funny British general surgeon with a great cutting wit who gave the hospital's administration fits.

A nice Turkish general surgeon with the thankless job of Chief of Surgery. Who besides that, had a wife and kids that almost drove him crazy.

A Sudanese internist who had trained in London and was a smart cookie.

"King Louie", a hilarious Irish-Canadian with a general practitioner wife and kids who lived in the Royal Suite at the Sheraton. He got booted when the King of Djibouti arrived. He was a gynecologic oncologist, but he did everyday ob-gyn at Al Hada.

Some nice guys from the USA who were oral surgeons. One of them was a rock hunter, and we took some interesting walks in the mountain behind the hospital while he gave me geology lessons.

A Dutch general surgeon who lived in Seattle and learned Arabic. The Dutch do languages very well!

An orthopedist from Jacksonville, FL whose name is long gone. This guy was a mover and shaker. He was in hog heaven. Polio was endemic in SA, and he ran a crippled children's clinic as good as any in the USA. He even got a ruling from the imams that a hand severed for theft could, under the Koran, be reattached. I expect that he was the happiest of us all because he had plenty to do, and he stayed out of the medical political scene.

Another psychiatrist who almost died while driving to Jeddah to pick up his wife at the airport. His car struck a camel in the dark, and he awoke with a dead camel in the back seat of a station wagon. Some English people came along and helped him, or it would have been a day or so before any Saudi would have dared.

Another GP who had a wife and several children with him. He told me it was imperative to get them out of the kingdom every three months to maintain sanity. He also has his smallest child programmed to say, "Daddy, I am going to throw up." to speed their way through customs.

A lab tech that had arrived with me who got rousted out of bed and flown out of the kingdom at two AM because he had been making some sort of illegal substance in his room. This would have landed him in jail had not the hospital management people acted quickly. Life in the compound was hard for those young people with little to do except work. There was a beautiful outdoor pool, but of course, no mixed sex swimming. Read, sleep, and work was about it. It was funny to go out to a restaurant (Some nice Turkish places there) and see a young couple with an older woman on a "date".

Random last thoughts:

Christmas and Thanksgiving when the hotel held some sort of celebratory feast. Loren asking the very nice Lebanese Chief of Service for a double Beefeaters on the rocks. He was nicely refused.

Watching baboons, yes baboons, scale the cliffs of the escarpment in the dessert near the hospital.

Talking with some young Saudi men while on a hike. Learning that a wife cost about a hundred thousand dollars paid to her family. No wonder they are considered property.

When it was time for my two month trial to be over, a Saudi man often seen in the hospital and that we all thought to be a government agent, sat down with me and very nicely asked what he could do for me to stay an extra month. The Pan-Islamic conference was in February, and the powers were so paranoid that they just had to have a neurosurgeon there. In my situation that was not possible as my partner and I literally passed in the airport, as he was leaving on his two month sabbatical in turn. In today's climate, I expect that I would have just been held there until the conference was over. I wonder what he would have paid for me to extend.

Departure time was not a thing that I had seen with dread. There were things back at home. I was going to miss my new friends there. Handley was going home on home leave, so we arranged to get a British Air flight from Jeddah that left at two AM but did serve alcohol once airborne. We booked a room at the Jeddah Hyatt to sleep until time to go the airport. Leaving was no hassle as coming in had been. I had in my possession an exit letter from the government saying that my conduct in the kingdom had been correct.

Sitting in first class of the big BA bird as it lifted off, I saw a whole Saudi family, mom, dad, and grandma stand, pull off thobes and veils, and order martinis all round. In SA you go by the rules, but outside the kingdom, apparently anything goes.

The return to London was fine. I taught the BA steward how to make a boilermaker. When I saw a woman behind a counter at Heathrow, I was shocked. I knew that I had returned from another planet.

Gigli's Trip to Another Planet Part 3

2006-04-28T17:18:00.000+02:00

Sheraton Al Hada Hotel

The Islamic philosophy about injuries and accidents became evident to me when I received, as a patient, a lady from Mecca who was related to a Saudi soldier. In SA, if you are related to a member of the military, you are eligible for medical care in a military hospital facility. Now, I know that there must have been neurosurgeons in Mecca, but I was glad to see a patient. The chief of surgery was a Turk and a Muslim, so he rode with the ambulance, the fifty or so miles to Mecca. Outside of Mecca, there is an expressway bypass for non-muslins, as only Muslims can enter the city. This patient was to teach me a lot about how accidents were handled in SA under Islamic philosophy.

The idea is that any event that happens is "God's Will", and to interfere with his will is a big mistake. The lady had been injured in an auto accident several days before. How long she remained at the scene, I do not know, but she did lie on a stretcher in a Mecca hospital for about two days without an IV, etc. After that, she was referred to Al Hada because she was an aunt of a soldier. Then it was OK for us to treat her. Well, the poor thing needed some fluids, etc., and then she should have had a CAT scan. The CAT scan was still being installed, so it was unavailable. Therefore, we did it like the pre-CAT scan days. We put in some burr holes on both sides of her skull. It turned out that she had no surgical lesion or increased intracranial pressure, so the medical people took her over. I spoke with her family again through an interperter after the surgery was over. I told the interperter to relay to them that this patient was not likely to make a good recovery, if indeed, she lived. The lady interperter said that she could not tell them all that at once, but that they should be told over several days. That point became moot, as she died some hours later.

Such things as "God's Will" became a source of some relief for me in that unless I were to deliberately do someone harm, as in a criminal act, there was no such thing as malpractice in SA. Bad results are viewed as faultless. Instead, it is God's Will, and nobody would blame God. The hospital had its own mosque, but in SA, no one but a Muslim can enter a mosque. During prayer times, it was common to see men on their knees facing Mecca to pray. I saw one such man in the hospital parking lot. I later bought a prayer rug to take home. It made an excellent floor mat for my car at the time. I don't think that God minded that at all.

Evenings and weekends were free, and since I had no patients in the hospital most of the time, I could go with Handley and Loren (Loren had purchased a classic old Mercedes and gotten a Saudi driver's license) into downtown Taif. Most of the city was in a state of perpetual construction, since in February, it was to be the site of a Pan-Islamic Conference. The areas of the souq and the nearby street where the telephone exchange was located were open to all. The souq quickly became our favorite place. Maybe one should use the word souq in the pleural because it was like a department store. A clothing souq, a money souq, a gold souq, a food souq,etc. This area was much like an open air market with stalls and small buildings holding all sorts of merchandise.

The three of us frequently ate in the souq in the evening. The crowds were thick, but as non-believers, when all faithful knelt at prayer time, we could easily move about and get ahead of people in lines, etc. One of our favorite places to eat was "Dirty Thobes", a hole in the wall joint where a friendly Arab in a dirty thobe (the robe worn by Arab males) acted as a sort of barker out front in the street. I think that he was also the cook. He became familiar with us, even though we could not converse, to the point that he would invite us into the kitchen to pick out what we wanted. Giant pots full of rice, potatoes, etc. were there. Usually this, along with a broiled chicken was fine. He never understood why we always refused the salad. The vegetables in SA are gorgeous, but are fertilized with "night water", or raw sewage. No one of us ever got a GI problem, but we were judicious in our intake. Foreigners must adjust there thinking about flies in SA. They are everywhere, and you can become used to them. Thobe's had asingle cold water sink to one side where we washed our hands before eating. All the Saudi customers ate with their hands and washed AFTER they finished. After a meal there, we could go to another spot in the souq to have a delicious crepe-like dish made of a crepe, bananas, sugar, and butter, all rolled together and steamed. Other dishes that we sampled were a Saudi hot dog, which was what everyone knows now as a Kebap. We found Tabasco sauce in SA along with these. I have often tried to reproduce the wonderful rice dish at Dirty Thobe's place. It had whole cloves, cardamons tumeric, and all sorts of spices in it, and I could eat it by the bowl. Along with our meals we always had alcohol-free beer. I never realized how many beer companies made this beer for export to SA. Try Schlitz, Miller, etc. for example. Dirty Thobe would step next door to a kiosk and fetch it for us. While in the souq, I usually would buy dates and olives, both of which I snacked on out of my room refrigerator. They were delicious!

The souq held many other things besides food. Handley and I bought thobes for ourselves, as well as the head dress typical of Arab men. There were camel skin bags big enough to carry a small child, all sorts of electronics and tapes. Tapes were openly counterfeited while you waited. Gold at that time was about eight hundred dollars an ounce. In SA gold is sold by the gram, so you pay for the weight and not the workmanship. SA women have arms full of gold bracelets. I wanted a fifty Peso Mexican gold coin to take home, so I enquired around and found a young man who knew where I could buy one. He took me by the hand and led me to a place in the gold souq. I will always remember being led down the street, holding hands with a young man, while Loren ran along behind us laughing. It is accepted in SA, for males to hold hands while walking. That would have never flown in Alabama. Anyway, I got the coin.

In Taif, as in all SA cities and towns, there were small open storefronts with tables and open double tiered seats like bunk beds where men congregated to drink sweet tea and smoke Hooflahs. These contraptions were small to huge and consisted of a column of brass set on a pot filled with water, and a tube leading to a mouthpiece. One puts a sweeted tobacco in the top, lights it, and then puffs away. I found one of these in a souq and brought it and a can of the tobacco home to the states. Phone calls to the USA were at a premium, but once a week, I could go to the phone souq, wait in a room full of folks, and then make a pre-paid call.

The role of women gets and has gotten, a lot of press in the western world. In SA, women are restricted in public. You see no Saudi woman in public not covered, face, arms, and legs. Western women are advised to cover all but the face. A woman's bare legs are subject to being sprayed with black paint by the religious police if seen. Women do not go out in public alone. They must be with other women or a husband. An unmarried woman with a man without a chaperone woman along is considered an adulteress or prostitute, both are which are a no-no. Women do not work or drive cars, and this applies to western women also. In the compounds, this can cause a lot of distress among wives. Unless they have a job teaching, they play bridge. It is a hard existence for them otherwise. On the other hand, I have seen men driving a car with one or more women in the back seat, shaking fingers at him and verbally giving him the devil. You never acknowledge a man's wife either in public or by asking her health, etc. in private. I am told that behind the door of a family home, it is another matter entirely regarding male-female relationship. The woman is boss. The Koran has specifics on men and women. Their children belong to the man. The man is obligated to care for his wives, no matter how many. Divorce is his prerogative, but he should see that his former wife does not go hungry, etc. If she has been unfaithful, that is another matter.

Saudi punishments are severe and delivered by Islamic law. One pays "blood money" for manslaughter. At the time I was in the kingdom, it was thirty thousand dollars or equivalent. Theft is punished by removal of the right hand with a sword. The right hand is always used for eating and shaking hands. The left is used only for personal hygiene, so this is a stigma for life. Adultery is punished by stoning. The person to be stoned is buried up to the chin, and people are encouraged to thrown softball sized stones at the head. If one can extricate themselves before losing consciousness, one if free (but likely has a bad headache). Murder is punished by beheading, always with a confession of the guilty. This is done with a sword and always, as with all punishments, on Friday afternoons after prayers. If the victim's family forgives the murder, the life may be spared. There are no appeals otherwise, and punishment is swift (usually the week of the deed). Punishments are public and youngsters and foreigners are pushed to the front so they may see well. So much for deterrence! The executioner for Taif also happened to be the head gardener at the hospital, so I saw him often in his "other job". He was aid to be an excellent swordsman with a clean cut always. I never saw any punishment, but we christened the spot "Chop Chop Square". There were several beheadings in Mecca and Ryhad while I was in the country as reported in the newspaper.

Regular paydays were held in the hospital, and of course were popular events. On my first payday, I went down to the basement mail room where the salaries were paid. To my surprise, the man in the cashier's cage pushed a huge stack of Saudi Ryals to me. It was more than I could fit into all my pockets, so I put the notes into a sack. There was no way to handle all this, so I took a few hundred Ryals for incidentals and headed off to the bank in Taif. The bank scene reminded me of the Jeddah airport. Total chaos with people pushing and shoving. Jumping lines is an accepted custom in SA, so it is like musical chairs sometimes. Anyway, while all this was going on, Bingo!, it was prayer time. I found myself standing amongst a floor full of praying Saudis. I simply went to the head of a teller's line and grabbed onto the bars at his gate. He arose after praying, and I was number one. He told me that for traveler's checks, I needed to go to the balcony and see another man. This man was an old Arab in a beautiful gray thobe who had good English. He fixed me up with US Dollar traveler's checks and took my Ryals. Then he said that "sometime soon" I should sign the checks. I did that at his desk. Where have you ever taken a blank traveler's check out of a bank without them insisting on this at once? Theft was not likely, but who takes chances?

Six Degrees of Separation

2006-04-27T10:06:00.000+02:00

We all have said, "It is a small world, isn't it?", before when we meet someone who also knows a friend or acquaintance who we also know. Well, the world is a lot smaller than you think, and it has been fairly well substantiated. Barbara is the one who brought this to my attention, but once you are aware of it, you keep finding examples.

Supposedly, every person is connected to another by no more than four other people, or six degrees of separation. Theoretically, that means that A and B would know each other if A asked four people if they knew B. Some one of those four would be able to say yes. There is a similar theory in dictionary use. If a word researched has links to other words, then by following these links six times, one would be able to find any word that has links. The theory is that we all have a circle of acquaintances, and by each searching their database, overlaps will occur.

Now remember, this a hypothesis, not a guarantee. Of course it doesn't work every time, but it is uncanny how often it does. For instance, some years ago, I had a friend who was a retired teacher. We saw each other a few times in Georgia and each time he came to CH. I also knew two ladies who visited CH often and were retired teachers. Neither man or the two women knew each other. They both knew me. At a meeting of retired teachers in Georgia, they happened to meet and exchange information about their Swiss trips. Not only did they both know me, but they also knew my landlady here in CH.

One of my daughters has a position with Tennessee Economic Development. One of her favorite contacts is a man who I knew when in High School. He and I have not seen each other in fifty years, but he works at times with my daughter. She also works with two other people who I never met, but whose relatives were friends of mine or my parents.

We know a women here in Sachseln who would be called a mayor in the US. She has a sister who lives in San Francisco. A lady who visits Sachseln as a tourist was at a party in San Francisco and saw a woman in a particularly pretty sweater. She asked her where she had found this clothing. The lady told her it had been a gift from her sister in Sachseln, Switzerland (our "mayor"). I know both the US tourist and the "mayor".

Six Degrees of Separation was first popularized by a psychologist named Stanley Milgram who went about having people send letters and packages to people in other cities and tried to prove that we are interconnected by no more than six other people that we know. In other words, one person knows no more than six people who know you. Various efforts have been made to show this with results varying from 5 to 97%.

I took part in this study not long ago. It is being done at Columbia University. If you are interested go to

http://smallworld.columbia.edu/

I did not receive any results from query (so far).

Gigli's Trip to Another Planet Part 2

2006-04-27T10:05:00.000+02:00

During my tour of the hospital, I met some of the doctors already there. I think that I was the only one there on a trial basis, since a lot of them had families with them. The whole place was brand new. It had been opened about three months before. The only native Saudi doctor in the whole place was an anesthesiologist who had trained at the Mayo Clinic. There were a few Americans, some Brits, some Canadians, and a Turk or two. Although I only became close with a couple, the rest were quite congenial and all seemed to be well trained. The nursing staff was predominately British, American, and Canadian in supervisory roles and Filipino as floor nurses. They all tended to interact with doctors a bit more pleasantly than their USA counterparts, but that is a two way street.

One of my first surprises was the fact that the hospital had NO real neurosurgical operating instruments. Never fear, my predecessor had already ordered them ,and they were to be in the kingdom shortly. More about that later. I was asked to tell them when I wanted to have clinic and when I wanted to schedule operating times. There were general surgery, ophthalmologic, ENT, dental, and other procedures up and running. There was an active OB-GYN service also. The clinics were both in the hospital and in downtown Taif. The latter was the most interesting by far, as was a visit several times to the old Taif hospital. In this facility, likely built during the Ottoman Empire, one felt like he was far removed from the modern world outside.

After the hospital tour, I was taken, along with my bags to The Sheraton Al Hada Hotel. I was led to believe that this was only for a short time before I was to be moved to a spot in one of the several dormitories in the hospital compound. Truth became, I was a resident of this hotel for the duration. That was not bad, I had a beautiful room for two facing the hospital about a mile away, with a nice bath (with bidet), an alcove on entering held a small refrigerator. Bottled water was delivered daily, and it was used even for tooth brushing. The hotel had a coffee shop where I frequently had a continental breakfast, and I was picked up each AM by the hospital van. In those days, the knees were in marathon shape, so I usually was up before daylight to run down the hill from the hotel and onto the expressway that ran by the hotel's site and contained no traffic.

It was downright cold in the early AM, but nice and quiet. The prayer call from the mosque would begin at daybreak, and the kids would begin to come out of the dessert to wait for a school bus. The children are beautiful and anxious to see people who don't look like themselves. Once the girls reach puberty, things change. They are veiled, and if I approached one on foot, she would move away and turn her back. Occasionally, I would meet a goat or two, since animals and cars share the expressway. Only as one got close to Taif about ten miles away, did the cars appear and use appropriate lanes. I was told that these nice roadways had been built by Scandinavian companies. Saudi drivers were on the par with those in bumper cars that one rides at carnivals, etc.

On my first day in the hospital, I renewed my orientation and found that there was little to do. My two closest friends in SA were to be Handley Coles and Loren Ryan. Handley was a British pediatrician in SA on a two year contract. He lived in retirement in Wales, and like many Brits, he needed the money even in retirement. Loren was a neurologist from California, divorced, and there for reasons that I never really explored. Both guys were fun, and we all lived in the hotel, played a lot of gin rummy, and talked about drinking gin a lot. I had taken the pledge on arrival in the kingdom, thinking that when in the kingdom, do as the kingdom says. Loren and Handley were not of that mind.

Saudi Arabia is alcohol free, but be sure that does not mean there isn't plenty to be had. There was a thriving business in homemade "hootch", and in all the foreign compounds, bars could be found. Drunkenness was punished by whipping, so drinkers were smart to stay in their compounds when imbibing. Drugs likewise were banned, but I learned that members of the royal family, especially, the young princesses were prone to addiction. My tour in SA included the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years' Eve. This was cause for me to be a designated driver on at least one of those days. I'll remember that because while sitting in a bar in the compound of a large armament company, I had occasion to talk with an interesting character while Handley and Loren were getting polluted. His name was "Fast Eddie". He was an American who ran booze from some where up near Israel down through the dessert to Taif. At ninety dollars a fifth for a bottle of scotch, he must have been doing OK. If he had been caught, it would not have been pleasant if he lived. The bedouins would have robbed and killed him, or the religious police would have jailed him. I never saw a Saudi jail, but I was told that if jailed, a person's family was responsible for his food and water. The jails didn't run a hospitality service.

Days at the hospital consisted mostly of reading in the library, walking the compound, eating lunch, and generally trying to pass the time. On clinic days, I would go into town with Loren to a few patients. Occasionally, there was a consult to see in the town hospital, but mostly I just waited for this load of neurosurgical equipment sure to be just around the corner. Well, it turned out that this stuff arrived two days before I left in mid-January! Lot of good that did me. I did a sum total of three cases in two months; not a week's activity back in Alabama. The Saudis had so much money that they had taken my predecessor's order list and DOUBLED it! There was enough neurosurgical equipment for TWO hospitals when I left, and as far as I know, there was no new man immediately following me.

My three cases were done with some orthopedic instruments that one of the surgical nurses put together for me to approve. She was one of those scrub nurses that could anticipate what I wanted as I realized it myself. We did two herniated lumbar discs and burr holes for a closed head injury. One of the discs was on a Saudi's wife, and the other was on a Royal Air Force pilot who had trained in TX and IL. Both were happy with their results, as was I. The woman and her husband spoke no English, so one of the Jordanian women translators helped me on rounds etc. On discharge, her husband presented me with a brand new Gruen wrist watch. As I thanked him, the translator cautioned me not to be too appreciative, or else the man would not think highly of me. The pilot patient and I had some interesting conversations. He was congenial but frank in his assessment of western values. "You have your rules and laws, and we have ours, but we abide by ours." Apparently western culture in a big US city such as Chicago had turned him off. The closed head injury will come in another chapter.

Gigli's Trip to Another Planet Part 1

2006-04-25T17:55:00.000+02:00

Al Hada Hospital (r)

Back in 1980-1981, it became somewhat advantageous for me to take a trip out of the country. Now, this wasn't because I was on the lam, or something like that. It was just a matter of expedition in a civil matter.

I found an ad in the back of a medical magazine looking for doctors to go overseas. My partner agreed to a sabbatical, so I called these people. It was a national medical company that managed hospitals in the USA and other countries. I spoke with a recruiter who sounded interested in me. I agreed to meet him in Dallas which was half way between us to be interviewed and get details on his offer to post me to a hospital in Saudi Arabia. The meeting went well enough, but he was looking for someone to make a two year commitment. I told him there was no way that I would consider going to Saudi Arabia on a two year contract without trying it out for a shorter period. He said he could offer a two month trial with an option for two years after that. I did not know then that the neurosurgeon present at the post then was leaving, so needs were urgent.

It was set up for me to be in SA from 15 November until 15 January. Over the next several weeks, I received literature on SA, got my shots up to date, and made preparations to leave. I had never been to SA, so it sounded interesting. I was to be flown from Atlanta to Dulles, then to London and onward to SA where I would spend a night in Jeddah and get picked up to travel by car to Taif. Taif is the summer capitol of SA. The king moves the whole government from Riyadh to Taif for 3 months each year because at 7000 feet above sea level, Taif is cooler. I was to work in a military hospital near Taif called Al Hada. This was a brand new facility. More about that to come.

In those years, SA was pulling in several BILLION dollars A DAY from the sale of oil. That had so much money that they couldn't spend or invest it all. Therefore, the sky was the limit. The flight over and back was all first class, I was put up in The Sheraton Al Hada hotel in a nice double room for two months, I could have all my meals free in the hospital, and the salary was generous. So, I hopped the plane in Atlanta ready to transfer in Dulles for the ride to London. Whoops! I got to Dulles with only one of two suitcases. I called my contact in California and assured him that I was not about to leave the USA for SA without both suitcases. No mind, just check in at the airport hotel, and they would find the baggage. Sure enough, the next evening, I was off with both suitcases, on my journey.

Talk about another planet! The trip to London and on to Jeddah was uneventful. First class is grand, especially if someone else is paying the bill. Saudia, the national SA airline was the last leg from London to Jeddah, so I learned to drink cardamom coffee. The Kingdom bans all alcohol, so there was no wine list. We arrived in Jeddah at about one AM SA time, to be greeted with a blast of the hottest air I had experienced in a long time. Winter in SA means temperatures of the upper nineties. The Jeddah airport was a mess. I mean a Chinese fire drill gone bad mess. Yelling and screaming in Arabic, no English whatsoever, no usable phones, AND no one there to meet me. After I went through a search in which customs wanted to make sure that I had no bibles, Christian symbols, booze, or pornography, I finally got some money changed. Talk about culture shock, I was blown away, hot, and jet lagged. Then up comes this kid of maybe fifteen years who did have a few words of English. He had a taxi and would drive me to the Hyatt in downtown where I was booked and to meet the ride to the hospital the next morning. The streets in Jeddah may be paved, but the dessert covers that, so we roared off in a cloud of dust with this kid driving like there was no tomorrow. We made it to the hotel, I paid junior off, and went to bed.

The next morning I was met along with three other folks by a hospital representative who was to drive us about sixty miles up to Taif. No matter what one says, the landscape was striking, and the trip up the escarpment to Taif was impressive. Al Hada is a name for a mountain near Taif, and the hospital was named after it. It sat at the foot of the mountain, and it looked beautiful and new. The several buildings sit inside a compound off a big autobahn with little or no traffic. Once we reached the main building, I was met by a doctor who was to be my guide. I mentioned that I wanted to store my bags somewhere, and he said to just leave there by the front door. They would be perfectly fine. When I questioned that, he said that there would be no theft, since one gets the right hand axed off for stealing. When I returned several hours later, there were my bags.

Since the hospital dorms were full, surplus personnel were being housed at the Sheraton within walking distance on a hill near the hospital. This was to be a temporary measure, but I stayed there for two months. A real adventure was to begin!

World War Two and "J"

2006-04-13T10:22:00.000+02:00

I have a friend who I'll call "J". She is a quintessential Grand Dame, but she is also one of the most engaging and kind people that I have met in a very long time. She is French, but she has been married to a Swiss man and has been in CH for many, many years. When I found out that she grew up in Paris during WW II, I asked if I might sit down and interview her about her life there when the Germans were in control of the city. J was born in 1924, so you can see that she is in her ninth decade. Despite that, she looks my age, and has a wonderful mind. There must be a batch of good genes in her makeup.

Our interview took place in her living room in a village near where I live. I might add it looks like a museum. She divides WW II into the "funny war" and the "real war". The funny war was that prior to Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. It wasn't looked on as a world war with Europe being a prize, but when Poland was invaded, it became a prelude to WW II. When Japan and the USA entered, it was a true world war. She was sixteen years old and a student when Poland was invaded. She spent some time in England about the same time, as her father felt she should learn English. She made it back to France before the Germans invaded, much to the relief of her family.

First, a bit about J. Her family lived in a well to do Paris suburb, Neuilly. Her father was the owner of an engineering and manufacturing concern that did business all over Europe. He had been in World War I and had been seriously wounded. He did recover but was always a fan of the USA because of their help in WW I. The family had a home in the south of France and a country house about forty miles out of Paris where they had sharecroppers to help. They welcomed a Swiss girl into their house who wanted to earn some money and learn French. This continues today to be a way that young Europeans learn a foreign language. It so happened that this young girl was from the village of Engelberg here in central CH. Through this contact, the two families became friends, and it was not long until ski holidays, as well as summer vacations were often spent in Engleberg. The significance of this will become evident later.

As the war progressed, it was certain that France, including Paris, was going to be occupied by the German advance. This, of course, took place with a puppet government, Vichey, being installed. J says that General Petan, the titular head of state was mentally incompetent and a true puppet. I was curious about how this young girl fared in the occupation. J had originally wanted to study medicine, but the war prevented that pursuit. She did however, at her father's suggestion,begin a course in Red Cross training to become a nurse. She lived on the eastern side of Paris, and all the hospitals were on the western side. Her means of transport was her bicycle. Bicycles were the universal means of travel then because there was no fuel for cars. It seems that as long as she minded the curfew, life could go on in the city for her and her education.

Rationing was in full swing. The goods available with coupons were shoddy, and things such as shoes were made out of cardboard. J had a pair of pre-war shoes that were leather with rubber soles. These were her treasure and lasted the war. Food was scarce, coffee was non-existent, and things such as fruit not to be found. She told me of how her father had their pre-war Mercury sedan cut and modified so that it would run on charcoal. Evidently, this was done with steam. They could make trips to their farm where peasants would get them some vegetables and a bit of milk now and then. The country house had been requisitioned by the Germans, but the peasants had emptied it of some furnishings that the family could retrieve after the war was over. There was a thriving black market in Paris, but the punishment for using it was extreme ( a trip to a concentration camp).

J remembers that several Jewish families just disappeared from her neighborhood. No trace left. It soon became common knowledge of what Hitler was doing to the Jews. J is a catholic, but had Jewish school friends just not show up for school and never be heard from again. She did know of one family that was sent to Ravensbruck. The NAZI propaganda was everywhere. Most of the movies were just that, although occasionally, there would be a French movie worth seeing. During the whole occupation J never was spoken to, or spoke to, a German soldier. She remembers always having a feeling of fear. Some of her friends were disappearing, the family house in southern France was bombed and destroyed, the country house was occupied and looted, she saw one dogfight while in the country around that house where two planes were shot down in the adjacent woods. They found one plane without a pilot, and another where two men had died. She remembers the fear that her father would be caught listening to the BBC from London. A trip to a camp would have been his punishment, but they could learn the true progress of the war and that the allies were on their way. The Germans used triangulation trucks to try and find these radios. These would roam their neighborhood at night.

J remembers the day that the Germans packed up and left their country home where earlier a German soldier had brought her mother a pheasant that he had shot on their own land. Her mother coolly told the soldier that they wanted nothing that the Germans had to offer. A few days later, the Germans left Paris, supposedly because they were needed on the Eastern Front. They had agreed not to destroy the city although the entire place was rigged with explosives. Of course, we all have seen pictures of the allied soldiers welcomed in Paris.

In a few months, the war in Europe was over. J had been engaged to a French soldier who was not a favorite of her father because he had no job. Her father had been the one to get this man into the French army, and he told J later that he suspected the father was hopeful of a battlefield exit for him. When this didn't happen, her father made arrangements for her to go with a Godmother to the Godmother's property in Argentina. The two women spent a month or so traveling on a ship and seeing about the Godmother's holdings there. By this time the engagement had dissolved.

J returned to France and began to work as a nurse with the allied medical services in the Office of Strategic Services. The OSI was the precursor of today's CIA. Soon afterwards, she and a group of other personnel were on their way into Germany when the jeep she was riding in had a wreck. She was ejected and suffered a compression fracture of her spine. This required a hospital stay of several weeks, and she still has the discharge summary from the US Medical Unit near Hamburg. The accident ended her military career and her OSS position as a Lieutenant in the US forces.

Shortly after the end of the war, she found herself once again in CH and in Engelberg of all places. She met a nice young Swiss man who had grown up in Engelberg where his parents owned a hotel. Soon, it became apparent that they would get married, they did, and to this day have a place in Engelberg. What a circle this has been for a girl of six or seven to a woman returning to Engelberg to find her mate, have three children, and remain with him to this day.

J showed me a grand collection of postcards and old photos which I am sure her children and grandchildren will find a valuable source of this lady's life story. My afternoon with her was full of surprises. Her story would make a grand novel, and it serves to remind me that here in Europe, every older person must have a story to tell. I am grateful that we had this time together. She knows of my intention to blog this part of her life history, and I am very happy to do this.

Can This Be True?

2006-04-10T12:50:00.000+02:00

For several years, Barbara and I have been covered by Swiss medical insurance. It seems that after a law was passed, we had to do this in order to remain here. Our insurance in Britain was no longer acceptable.

In CH, there is universal health insurance coverage for all persons. All insurance companies in CH have to accept you for the obligatory coverage, no matter what, and this coverage cannot be cancelled, even for non-payment of premiums. If a single person has less than 15,000 CHF income, their premiums are paid by the kanton. I am sure that there is sliding scale for man and wife, couples with children, etc., but I have no reason to know what exactly.

That means that every patient has insurance. The coverage can vary, if you want more bells and whistles, but the basic policy remains the same. For instance, Barbara and I have the highest deductible allowed. We are also covered outside the country (in the USA paid at double the benefits for 6 weeks). If we can't get back to CH in 6 weeks, it likely won't matter for us.

Now, I read about the Massachusetts legislature passing what seems to be the same universal coverage law. Other states are looking at it closely too. Below are the main points taken from the Providence Journal newspaper.
________________________________________________________
Key provisions of the Massachusetts health care plan

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 10, 2006

As of July 1, 2007, all residents over age 18 must obtain health insurance or face financial penalties. Individuals for whom there is not affordable coverage will not be penalized.

Employers with 11 or more employees who do not provide health insurance will pay $295 per full-time employee per year. Employers will also pay a surcharge to the state if their uninsured employees repeatedly use free care.

Young adults can stay on their parents' insurance plans for two years past the loss of their dependent status or until they turn 25, whichever comes first. People ages 19 to 26 will be eligible for lower-cost, specially designed insurance products.

The state will subsidize health insurance for people who earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, with premiums on a sliding scale. The insurance will have no deductibles. People with incomes below 100 percent of the poverty line won't pay premiums.

Children with family incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level will be eligible for Medicaid. Providers will receive rate increases from Medicaid.

A Health Insurance Connector Authority will certify new, lower-cost health-insurance plans that meet its quality standards. Small businesses and individuals will be able to buy these plans with pretax dollars. Individuals can take their insurance with them when they change jobs.

The small group and individual health-insurance markets will be merged, reducing premiums by an estimated 25 percent.

_______________________________________________________
This seems to make good sense to me. I just have to ask what are the objections by anyone? Why did it take so long?

Be True to Your School

2006-04-04T13:10:00.000+02:00

I do not consider myself a literary critic of any importance. I do like to read, and there is a very short list of books that I have not been able to finish at least. A friend recently told me about a book with the title of this blog by a guy named Bob Greene. Now Bob has been in a bit of hot water and has been somewhat disgraced by his former professionals in the newspaper business. I don't care to make a judgment about that.

What I do want you to know is that this guy followed me around day and night in my high school years. I didn't know that I was being followed, God forbid! He did this though, and we even had some of the same friends. He did all this, and I never had a clue. The only real difference is that he kept a daily journal in 1967, and I never gave a journal a thought. I was a bit ahead of his time, in that my high school days ended in 1957, but I still think he was shadowing me. He says all the events in the book are true, as are the people real. He has changed a few names to protect a few dignities, and I am sure that I am one of those.

Bob Greene was a tennis player in high school. Our school had no tennis team. We still had some of the same coaches and teachers too. He seems to go out for every meal. I don't know where he got that kind of money to spend at the Toddle House, but I went to Toddle Houses too. Greene had some of my teachers, even if he lived in Ohio and I lived in Tennessee. Mr. Schacht, his algebra teacher sounds like Mr. Shelton, my algebra teacher for one day (he died that night, not due to my presence, he just died). Greene also had a group of friends uncannily similar to the same rogues that I had as friends.

Greene's book is a nice read because you can read entries for one or two days, a week, or longer if you wish. Greene and I did a lot of cruising in cars and on foot, sometimes with cohorts and sometimes alone. He and I both had a first love, and he went through the same bittersweet agonies as I did. He and his buddies would go to other towns to meet new girls just like Ashby and I used to go to Humbolt and Memphis in his mom's hot-wired Caddy for the same thing.

Greene's school had fraternities and sororities like mine. That's a whole other blog entirely, and likely now, it is an anachronism.

More about this book, as I finish the last half.

The Locker

2006-04-01T11:15:00.000+02:00

While in high school one Friday morning, I was on the way to the campus and met my friend Ashby. As we passed a refuse heap, we saw a dead rat in it. Talk about the devil in your mind, we both had the idea to take this thing in and put it in a locker. Nobody ever locked a locker in those days unless you had money in it. Most held gym clothes and maybe a book between classes. One of our friends, "F", had always told us that he had been born without the ability to smell. We were going to test this. One of the guys in the picture above is F.

So, the deed was begun. We entered the hall where our lockers were and placed the rat under a pile of dirty gym clothes in F's locker which was not too far from ours. If we had not been somewhat stupid, as most teenage boys are, we would have chosen a more remote spot. We did reckon with whose locker it was but not that it was Friday.

School was out, and we went about our part time jobs, dates, looking for girls, etc. for the weekend. When Monday AM arrived, we didn't give the dead rat a thought until we arrived at school to find that the entire east wing had been closed off until further notice due to something dead in it. After an hour or so, the announcement came that those of us who needed to get into our lockers could go into the east wing. Our home room was in that area, and Ashby and I were about to bust a gut to see what had happened. We ran into the hallway where the lockers were to find F standing in front of his locker holding a pair of gym shorts dripping with maggots. It was true; he could not smell a thing.

Well, the principal went ballistic. He knew that F would not do such a thing to himself, so there had to be other guilty parties. There were about eight of us who had been buddies since kindergarten, so we were immediately excluded from suspicion. There was about a dozen others who were grilled throughout the day, but of course, no one could confess. This was the most fun that we had had since a condom had been affixed to a water fountain tied in the open position. Have you ever seen a condom with about four gallons of water in it? Better yet, how would one remove it without a flood?

We did have a lot of fun in high school. We confessed our rat deed to F after some years, and we all remained friends.

Al's Neck

2006-03-27T10:05:00.000+02:00

A few blogs back, I tried to answer a person's query about what a surgeon thought about before an operation. Later, it occurred to me that I had one experience that was funny to the patient and me too.

I used to play golf occasionally with a local man, who I'll call Al. He was a nice guy and a good golfer. Al was a much better golfer than I was, but we enjoyed the game together. Al's wife was also a good athlete, and I could barely beat her in a tennis match.

Well, one day Al shows up in my office as a patient. He had a good dose of every neurosurgeon's dream case, a classic ruptured disc in his neck. Al's was textbook in every way. Patients such as this always have a great result, and I was pleased that Al would be happy with my treatment. So we put Al in the hospital, ran a confirmatory test, and got him on the surgical schedule.

The evening before he was to have his operation, it occurred to me that neither Al or his wife had ever seen me do anything but play golf or tennis. I always struggled to beat his wife, and I never came close to matching Al's golf scores. I dropped by Al's hospital room as was my routine on pre-op patients. While there, I said, "Al, I want you to know that I do this operation a whole lot better than I play golf". He got a kick out of that, and he got the expected good result.

Comfortable? Uncomfortable?

2006-03-26T10:46:00.000+02:00

More and more, it seems that I hear people express whether or not they are "comfortable" doing this or that. Just who guarantees that we are all on this earth to be "comfortable"?

In past years, I told more than one doctor out in the boonies what I thought he should do with a patient before shipping them down the road to me. This usually takes place in the middle of the night with the patient being gravely ill or injured. The doctor is at home, and the nurse from an outlying hospital has called him. He doesn't want to get up, take care that the patient is in as good shape that he can be, before transferring him. This used to be especially true with children who had been injured. Sometimes a blood transfusion begun before transfer can be the difference between life and death in a kid with a broken leg, etc.

Of course, this means that old sleepy head has to rise up, start the transfusion, actually see the patient, etc. Now, we are talking out in the boonies ERs here, not at University City ER. When I used to hear, "I'm not comfortable doing this or that". It didn't make a flying flip to me about the person's comfort. I let them know quickly that their level of comfort was way down my list of things about which to worry. If they had wanted comfort, then selling shoes or something would be right down their alley.

Just a thought on today's ideas put forth by many people, not just doctors.

Ashby

2006-03-24T15:49:00.000+01:00

One of my lifelong friends was a guy who I'll call Ashby. He was a few months younger, but we grew up from toddlerhood to adulthood being friends. Ashby was a bloody genius in things mechanical, although in his early school years, it was thought he might be "slow". Turns out the kid couldn't read or write because he was half blind. Some glasses cured that problem, and then he took off.

By the time we hit high school, we were into some major adventures. Ashby could hot wire any motor, so we used to take a lot of unauthorized rides in his mother's black Cadillac or his dad's big old Buick. You'd be surprised at how the girls were impressed by those cars.

By the time we got to chemistry in high school, Ashby had a bee in his bonnet to make some gunpowder. The recipe was in the encyclopedia. So many parts sulfur, so many parts potassium nitrate, and so many parts charcoal. It was all available at the drug store. We mixed it up in a dish pan with a wooden spoon. OK. So what do you do with this dish pan of gunpowder? Well. You make a bomb. That's right, a bomb.

Now we weren't gangsters, but how do you know if you've made gunpowder unless it blows up. A man who lived across the street from worked for a metal pipe company, so getting a foot long 3 inch diameter pipe threaded on both ends and caps to screw on it wasn't hard. We took this and drilled a hole in the side near one end for a fuse port. The plan was to fill the pipe with gunpowder, have a cherry bomb inside with the fuse through the small hole, and cap it after compression with a ball bat. Then we would dig a hole, lean the pipe against the side, and place a railroad fusee so that it would burn down, light the fuse and WHAMOO!

OK. Where to dig the hole? Well, that brings up another topic. One that is likely long ago gone. High school fraternities and sororities were popular in the 40s and 50s. Ashby and I belonged to one. Our organization had rented a former night club outside of town that was a great place for parties and meetings. While close to the highway, it sat on the front of a huge wooded area that was totally wild. The terrain was a bit rolling, so we had a natural barrier between us and the "hole".

On a Saturday morning, we walked a few hundred yards into the wood, dug a hole about 2 feet deep, leaned the bomb across in one direction and the fusee in the opposite, lit it, and got the hell out of Dodge and over a small hillock. We had agreed that if there was a dud, we would leave and not return until the next day. Well, no dud. The thing blew up with a loud explosion and shrapnel flew through the trees. As soon as the commotion cleared, we ran over to the detonation site to find a 3 foot diameter hole.

To show how the grace of God protects fools, about two years later, a young highschooler in Knoxvile, TN blew himself in half making a pipe bomb in his parents' garage. He was packing the powder with a metal rod which sparked off a pipe edge. Glad we used a baseball bat of wood.

Gigli Gets the Needle

2006-03-24T14:55:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I went over to the hospital for an injection of cortisone into my right shoulder joint. This was set up after I saw the orthopedist a week before and found that I had degenerative arthritis (known as gray hair of the skeletal system) in both shoulders. He knew that I was a physician, and we talked about the procedure a bit.

So, I show up and go to the ER where a c-arm fluroscope is set up. The doc shows up, preps my shoulder, and under fluroscopic control places a needle into the joint and delivers the medicine. I am out of there is 5 minutes and go home.

So? Well, at no time was I asked to sign any consent or hear a litany of horrors as to what might happen to me. If I had being doing the same procedure in the USA, I would have had forms signed by the patient saying that they understood the possibilities of infection, paralysis, and death. Even with all that, there would still be a lawyer willing to sue because he would know that the insurance company would settle. If I refused to settle, then the company would have dropped me the next year.

Just not quite as litigious over here. A doc can get into trouble, but he has to be almost criminal in his actions. In medical school, a lawyer taught us jurisprudence. The idea was that docs are humans, and humans make mistakes. You would never be sued for a mistake. Nowadays, if a doc takes on a patient, there is an implied contract that the doc will make the patient well.

That's a bunch of horse feathers!

Prayer Meeting

2006-03-21T18:07:00.000+01:00

My medical school ran on the quarter system. Every eleven weeks, a new quarter began. We began to take surgery courses in the ninth quarter and would have class room and surgical clinics until we graduated. Surgery was interesting, and because we had some good teachers, we enjoyed it.

EXCEPT FOR:

Prayer meeting. This was a gathering of all surgical students, ninth through twelfth quarters held in a large auditorium at one PM each Friday. Each class tried to sit together, and all tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. The later quarter students were especially nervous because they were expected to know a lot more than the ninth or tenth quarter classes. It was a bitch of the first water!!

Why? Because it was run by the chief resident in surgery and the grand doo dah professor of surgery. Now, the professor was benign, although he could be sarcastic (a quality that I had not learned to appreciate yet). The chief resident, who later became a friend, struck terror into us all. The chief resident was a fifth year general surgery resident but also on the surgical staff as a paid member. He was selected by the teaching staff each year, and as chief he was responsible for scheduling other residents, teaching, problem solving, and everything else that no one on the regular staff wished to do. His perks were prestige, some salary, and the fact that he got the pick of any case that hit the door, no matter what. I knew only three chief residents, but they were all superior physicians and highly successful in their later careers. All general surgery residents would have gladly traded a gonad for the job.

Our chief resident was "Big Lou". He went on to become a renown transplant surgeon. He once told me that he always went to bed with a surgical journal. " you learn something, and it is a great sleeping aid." He was an imposing figure of a man, slicker than greased owl poop, and always right in his judgments (at least it seemed that way). He and the professor ran the prayer meeting and in a perverse way were proud of the name we had given the "conference". I do not remember how the roll call was kept, but I do know that it was not a class to cut. Unless you were hospitalized, you were there!

The format was this: A patient from the wards was brought in and presented to the audience with history, physical findings, and lab reports. The diagnosis was not usually given but ranged from the exotic to the everyday ailments that affect people. At that point one or more students were asked to come to the stage. That was white knuckle time. Those students would be queried on anything remotely to do with the case in front of their peers and judged by Big Lou and the professor. If a mistake was made or ignorance professed, results ranged from a mild rebuke and the answer, to a "WHAT, YOU DON'T KNOW!!!!", and the thought out loud that maybe another profession was in your future.

I only remember one time that I was in the hot seat. Big Lou and the professor quizzed me on a lady's varicose veins, and I got away like a bandit in a cold sweat. I am sure there were other times, but repression is a powerful mental mechanism. I did see a few compatriots raked back and forth though, and until graduation day, Prayer Meeting was always on our minds.

One more thought on Big Lou. He wasn't a bully, but he believed that tension was a great adjunct to learning. In our last quarter, we were each paired with a surgical resident, including the chief resident. The most timid and introverted man in our class got Big Lou. We wondered if he would survive. He was a good student but came across as scared of his shadow. Well, he realized that it was sink or swim time, so he gave Big Lou everything he received from him right back. Both of them survived and became friends.

My Funeral Home career

2006-03-21T16:28:00.000+01:00

When I was a junior in high school, I got a job at a funeral home(a friend was an apprentice funeral director, so I guess I "networked" it). I knew that I wanted to go into medicine, so I was interested in the anatomy, and it is certainly a good way to learn how to deal with folks at a bad time, as well as, meet the public. I worked after school, nights, and weekends, and it was a great job. I slept there, and since the phone bell was right under the head of my bed, I became conditioned to waking on the first ring. That came in handy later.

One of the two owners was the county coroner, and I enjoyed going on his cases with him. In those days, there were no EMTs, so funeral homes ran an emergency ambulance service. There was no training as today. We had a big red standard shift Cadillac accident ambulance with more lights and sirens than you could count. That scoundrel would go 70 MPH in second gear. I only drove it when the boss told me to take it out for a warmup spin, but at seventeen, that was a thrill. Our place had been in business for 100 years, so we buried all the aristocrats in town.

One coroner call will remain in my memory fore life. We were called by the police to a home that I had passed many times on the main street leading into the business district. As we entered the front door, it was obvious that all the house except a large kitchen was filled with lumber stacked almost to the ceiling. In the kitchen was a black man who was employed by the owner. He had reported the case to the police after finding his employer dead. It turns out that this employer owned a lot of property in the poorer section of town and lived off the rents. He didn't have rental payment problems because if a renter failed to pay, the black man just went by and took the front door off the house until payment was received. The dead man had lived alone with his mother in the house until she died. The black man showed us a brand new Lincoln in the garage that had never been driven except home from the dealer in town. It had been covered totally with cosmoline, that grease with which that weapons shipped at sea used to be covered. It was about three years old.

The deceased man was no doubt psychotic, but he did rig up an ingenious way to kill himself. In a corner of the kitchen, there was a wooden box built flush to the walls. It was about 4 by 4 by 8 feet in dimensions. The black man said he had helped the man build it, and they had caulked it like a boat. It was air tight when the lid was closed too. Now this dead man was really big (so big that we had to get a specially built coffin from a supplier to fit him). He was lying in the box clad in a nice bathrobe, quite dead, and quite cherry red. His skin and even the whites of his eyes were bright red. He was peaceful in repose, as if no struggle had occurred. There were about six carbon dioxide fire extinguishers, all discharged, at his feet and sides. He had done a good job of asphyxiating himself.

We took him back to the funeral home, embalmed him, and got him situated in the new coffin. He had two nephews as survivors. It was a small funeral.

This Surgeon's Thoughts

2006-03-20T09:25:00.000+01:00

I got an email from a friend today with the following quote about a question that another friend had asked him.

In casual conversation ** mentioned that he was always
curious about what a surgeon thought about before an operation. Was it
just the body of the day on the table? Was it a known person who had been
researched ahead of time? Etc., etc. I can't really relate his thoughts
but he is kind of a deep thinker on things like this but would be afraid
to ask questions of a real surgeon because ** would think of them as
being so far above him.

Well, I can only answer for myself. First, a surgeon puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. So, lets just forget the caste system. If you are willing to let some person flay you open with a scalpel without questions, you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed.

With few exceptions, I never was a personal friend of a surgical patient under my care. I did, on occasion, have occasion to operate on friends or children of friends. It was usually an unpleasant emergency situation and was an added stress. I did do several operations on friends with serious and yet non-traumatic conditions, where life could be lost or, the person left incapacitated in some way. Again, these were stressful above the norm.

With an "average" operation, I did not dwell on the procedure or patient to excess. Depending on the procedure's complexity, the preparation mentally varied. I was never a "ghost" surgeon, so I always knew the patient's background from a health standpoint, considered the complications, and discussed this, as well as the risk/benefit ratio, with them. In the case of children and those without good faculties, this was done with some responsible party. Of course, with emegencies, there was often no choice. I have met a number of parents and relatives for the first time after the surgery was done, and the patient had been treated in an emergency.

With complex procedures such as intracranial and intraspinal tumors and vascular lesions, I used to try and walk myself through the operation the day before. For some years, I was a runner, and many an operation has been rehearsed in my mind as I did my morning run. It was always good to plan for contingencies. The old saying that no one likes surprises in an operating room is true. They are usually not pleasant. For many of my operating years, I had a scrub nurse that was always with me. We could discuss in detail, if needed, the procedure beforehand. That was always helpful too.

So, in a nutshell, that is it. Anyone with questions can leave me a comment, and I'll try to answer.