High School Reunion, Delayed!

     I attended Langley High School in McLean, Virginia, graduating in 1971.  If that name rings a bell, it's because we were just upstream on the Potomac River from that other "Langley" thing, you know, "the Company," or as the big sign on Rt. 123 indicated, "Virginia High Department," or as everyone else in the world knew it, the CIA.  

    That area of Northern Virginia was packed with important people, and in that era, their kids mostly attended public schools, so LHS was an interesting place.  Brainy groups like Jazz Band, Math Club and the Chess Team were outstanding.  While our athletic teams were generally OK, it was said of our football team, "Yeah, they may be small, but they're slow!"  Oh, and by the way, Langley had more than a passing resemblance to a prison.

     However, I was not very interesting myself.  I was not exactly a standout scholar, and didn't make a splash otherwise.  I became good friends with Lloyd Hill, and together we got a job at an airport 25 miles southwest of Dulles International.  We were "lineboys," which meant that we fueled aircraft, changed runway lights and of course, cleaned toilets.  But that meant we could learn how to fly!  $1.25 an hour doesn't sound like much of a wage, but instruction including plane and instructor was only $17 an hour; today that figure is about $200 for the same time period.  I was awarded my pilot's license soon after turning seventeen and heading for college.  

    As I said, neither Lloyd nor myself made much of a splash at Langley.  Lloyd decided that needed to change, so we made the goal of getting our picture in the yearbook in an athletic team.  That would take some doing, as we weren't athletes, but with investigation, we learned that the tennis team didn't have "cuts;" as long as you dressed out, you were at least on the Junior Varsity Team.   

    When it came time for the yearbook picture, we lined up.  I was on the front row on one knee holding my racquet in a heroic pose.  No one noticed, but Jim Creedon in the second row was also holding his racquet, but he was flipping the bird on the 'throat' or handle of the thing.  

    The 50th reunion was cancelled due to COVID, so this was our 55th.  Jim and I laughed a bunch over that picture.  He told me that he lived in fear for the next month after it was taken, but no one noticed, and it made it in.  Here's Jim, second from the left:

     The reunion was interesting.  As you could have predicted, there were folks who had done amazing things in life.  One guy had spent 18 years in the DEA in Colombia and Peru during the Pablo Escobar era.  Another had been the head of the NTSB, while another served as his state's Treasurer.  Several were big in the tech world, while others had served in the Peace Corps and headed up various law and accounting firms.

     I was able to apologize once and for all to a nice girl (woman) who had gotten up her courage to ask me to the "Sadie Hawkins" (girl invitation) dance, which I had to back out of because I broke my leg.  Having been turned down myself a legendary number of times, I knew how that felt.    

    Overall, it was a satisfying reunion.  I'm aware that those in the class who had ended up in prison for life (or less) or who had encountered serious difficulties and setbacks would be less likely to come, but still, it was good.  Oh, and as we are all in our 70's, a number could not have made it in mortal form, having "graduated" from this sphere already.

    As I started the 4+ hour drive back to Raleigh, I smiled, not only thinking about Jim Creedon and the tennis team picture, but also realizing that my life had turned out OK.  Nothing fancy, no great titles or fame, but a good life.  I don't think I'd change much.  Especially not that picture.

Dave

Don't be dumb!

     Our granddaughter Sophia and her brother Edwin came from Tajikistan in May of this year to work for the summer, there being little work available for American teenagers in that Central Asian capital.  They both planned to work as lifeguards for the Raleigh City pools, which often don't open because of the lack of such guards.  They arrived, did their training and then waited for their background checks, fingerprints and drug screens to clear, which they never did, by the way.

     Meanwhile, both practiced driving, and Sophia earned her North Carolina driver's license.  Edwin was just in the early stages of driving, and will have to wait til later for his driving test.  

     In general, Edwin just didn't seem very ambitious or adventurous.  He often slept in late, and sometimes walked with a bit of a limp.  We figured it was probably "just Edwin," and didn't think too much of it.

    The rest of their family arrived for the annual beach trip, and all of that faded into the general tumult.  However, when the lot of them arrived in Utah for a family reunion there, Edwin got very sick, with a temperature above 106 F, aching joints, all sorts of thing.  He ended up in the hospital for eight days on IV antibiotics, and was diagnosed with "brucellosis," with point festering infections in various joints.  His dad, our son-in-law Brandon also became ill with the same malady.  They are both now on extended (three months) combination antibiotics, and Edwin still uses a cane.  While antibiotic therapy has reduced the mortality from the infection, it is still miserable.

    Brucellosis is caused by one of a number of bacteria in the genus Brucella, which are carried by livestock, including cattle.  It is acquired by consuming raw dairy products, or by exposure to fluids from infected animals.  It can cause miscarriages in cattle - and in humans!

    Back home in Tajikistan, my daughter Ashley buys raw milk from a dairy, but is very careful to pasteurize it to the proper temperature.  However, in retrospect, the housekeeper had been buying sour cream and other items that most likely were the source of the bacteria.

    Brucella carriage in dairy cattle in the US is very uncommon.  It is prevented through a combination of vaccination of calves, strict herd biosecurity and regular surveillance and culling of infected animals.  However, cases do arise, and they are caused by eating or drinking unpasteurized dairy products.  IS THAT CLEAR??!!

     DON'T FALL FOR THE RAW MILK MISINFORMATION!!  Raw milk is NOT more nutritious, and DOES NOT carry miracle probiotics that would be destroyed by pasteurization.  Please rely on real sources, and not influencers or the anti-everything people.  If you think it would help, I'll have Edwin give you a call.

Dave 

The "bouncing back" skipped a generation

      We breathed a sigh of relief when our last kid, Mike, left home and didn't come back.  That was some time ago, and all five young'uns are on their own, married to really good spouses, and we're not paying any cell phone bills or car insurance for anyone but our own selfish selves.  

      Plus, we don't even have a basement that anyone could live in and play video games all day if they wanted to.

    So, we thought we were over all of that.  However, we now have a grandkid living with us, and it's been a lot of fun.  

    Sophia is eighteen years old, and has received her assignment to serve a mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and she begins on September 16.  However, the fact that her family is living in Tajikistan (thanks to the State Department) has complicated things a bit.  For instance, her family is basically The Church in that country, so she was interviewed and all arrangements made remotely.  She's been called to the Washington DC South Mission.  

    She said, "That's great!  For me, that's a foreign mission, but they speak English, and there's Target!"  Sophie also speaks some Russian, so who knows where that may lead.

    Opportunities to work in Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan) are almost nonexistent for an expat, so she came here with her sixteen-year-old brother Edwin in mid-May.  She's been working as a lifeguard at local pools, 

as well as serving at the local Ben & Jerry's and babysitting.  

Sophie has been working up to 60 hours a week, and I have been impressed as she has tracked down work and been responsible.

    We've been trying to help.  For instance, I took her passport picture.  "No, Sophie!  You need to look more bland!  You need to remove every thought!"  She did great.  According to the picture, the brain switch was "Off."

    As noted in a previous post, while she has been here, she earned her North Carolina (and therefore U.S.) driver's license.

 

    Sophia has always been a joy.  It's against the rules to have favorite grandchildren, but...

 

    And she has yet to start playing video games in the basement.  As if she played video games.  Or as if we had a basement.  

 

    We will really miss having her around.  That, and we'll miss what she brings home from Ben & Jerry's.

Dave & Paula 

 

PS:  She actually helped several Uzbeks the other day at the ice cream place.  In Russian!

I guess it has to happen

      Rationally, I recognize that "no one gets out of here alive."  However, it's not a part of the plan that I'm particularly enjoying.  

    I hit 72 this year, and it hit right back.  In this post, I will not succumb to the temptation to which many of my fellow septuagenarians fall prey, that of participating in "organ recitals."  These are recitations of maladies and operations and medications and ailments from which they are suffering.   These discussions at times seem to be competitions to see who has the longest amazing list of such.  

    In defense of my fellow Old People (ohmygosh, am I an 'Old Person'?!), these concerns understandably begin to squeeze out other things in life as they occupy more and more attention and resources.  But it's frustrating, and, agreeing with the poet Dylan Thomas' plea to his dying father, I'd rather "not go gentle into that good night," but rather "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

     OK, a little example of the frustrating slippage.  As other posts have indicated, I've enjoyed riding bicycles through the years, and I think I can account for about 120,000 miles while on two wheels.  At times, I've used a heart rate monitor to help judge or push my fitness level.  I would hit 180 beats per minute at maximal effort, but after a while I laid the chest strap aside.  

    I recently put a new computer on the handlebars and synced the monitor again.  Huh?!  Even at maximal, hardly-able-to-breath effort, I couldn't get past 154 beats per minute.  What?!  Is this thing broken?  I just got it!

    The internet explained to me that with age...uh, oh.  Maximal heart rate, as well as individual cardiac stroke volume, blah, blah, blah all decrease with years on the odometer, and no, David, you are not going to be able to keep up with the 29-year-olds, no matter how hard you train.  Darn it!

    Frustratingly, mental acuity slips.  Frustratingly, mental acuity slips.  Did I already mention that?  Faces and names are apparently kept in separate drawers, and at times they don't communicate.  I still enjoy reading, but I can no longer give you as many details of the book I just finished, or remember the title of that really good one I read last year when comparing lists.

 

    So, what's up with all of this?  Well, thinking historically, we're not generally constructed to live this long.  In 1500, the average global life expectancy at birth was roughly 30 to 40 years.  Note, however, that this low average did not mean adults routinely dropped dead at 35; rather, it was heavily driven by catastrophic infant and child mortality rates, where roughly one-third to one-half of all children died before reaching adulthood.  Adults who made it past their early years frequently lived into their 50s, 60s, or older, much like people in later centuries.  But we have stretched that expectancy even further, and so things that weren't a big concern in 1500 become common.  My brother the retired orthopedic surgeon maintains that joints didn't have to make it to age 85 in the old days, and my friend the ophthalmologist says that although cataracts will happen to everyone eventually, they weren't as big a deal when The Plague or bad diet were going to get you before that point. 

    So, what's really up with all of this?  Speaking from an evolutionary, biological point of view, it makes sense.  Having a bunch of old examples around with limited resources available gives less opportunity to experiment with new 'improvements' in the species, and thus the eventual continuation of that species.  

    However, I believe that there's something else going on.  I am convinced that this is only one (extremely important) part of a much, much longer existence.  We are here to experience and accomplish things that can best be done in this chaotic, cruel, beautiful, complicated, marvelous phase, but we're not supposed to be here forever.  There are other things to learn and to do, other spheres in which to progress and become wiser and better.  

    And so, as frustrating as this aging thing is, it's gotta end this way, opening another door.  Can something be learned even from the breaking down of this physical vehicle, marvelous as it has been?  It's hard to accept, but probably, yes.  Patience, acceptance, understanding, kindness in response to the suffering of others can all be learned a bit more thoroughly as one passes through this.  Some of us are given the seeming favor of a quick, clean passage, while others are not.  

    OK, but am I ready to quit trying to learn how to kite foil?  Are there places I still want to visit?  Grandkids to watch grow up?  Absolutely!  And I'll try to keep trying, but with the overall perspective of an ongoing existence after this part is over.   

    Now, where did I put that stupid heart rate monitor?

Dave    

I thought I was done with that!

      When I was twelve, one of my buddies in Scouts 'borrowed' his mother's car keys and made some copies.  On several occasions, three or four of us would melt out of the back of the Scout meeting and go drive their family's Simca 1000 around the church parking lot, figuring out the clutch and how to keep from crashing into other stuff.  

 

    There were other 'informal' opportunities along the way to figure out the mysteries of driving, and when I got my learner's permit and went out with my dad, he commented on how quickly I seemed to pick it up.  "Yeah, I guess I'm just a natural," I said, without bringing up The Simca School of Driving, etc. 

    Not many years later, I got to teach several of my siblings how to drive.  In particular, one older sister got home from a session with our mother in which Mom screamed and fainted every time they came within a yard of the ditch or another vehicle and my sister pronounced, "THAT'S IT!  I AM NEVER DRIVING WITH HER AGAIN!!"  

    Now that I think of it, my younger brother didn't seem to have a problem picking up the skill; I probably just assumed his gang had also gotten hold of some poorly-guarded car keys.

 

    Fast forward to my kids.  We made sure that the 'kid car' was always a manual so that they could drive anything in the future.  Paula and I split duties, but she did the majority of instruction due to my work schedule.  Whichever kid was learning to drive dreaded getting home from school and hearing their mom announce, "Clutch clinic!"  That meant looking for stops signs on hills so that they could learn to start uphill.  Ever smell a burning clutch?

 

    Half a dozen totaled vehicles later, they all survived and headed out to life, and I thought that was it for teaching people to drive.  

    HAH!  One of our daughters lives in Dushanbe, Tajikistan because of the State Department, and her kids are getting to that age.  Soooo, two of them are here for the summer to work, as well as (you guessed it) learn to drive!  Oh, BOY! 

    Sophia, their #2 daughter and a great kid is now eighteen, and so in North Carolina she just needed a learner's permit and enough driving to pass the test.  She and I spent a bunch of hours over the last three weeks practicing in the parking lots, streets and highways around Raleigh, and I finally thought she was ready for The Driving Test!

    I was so nervous going to the DMV office with her that I forgot to bring shoes.  It's summer, OK?  I snuck in the waiting room barefoot while she was presenting the reams of required documents and I snagged a back row seat.  Thirty minutes later she came out from the back with thumbs up; she passed!!  I asked about any problems, any gaps in my instruction and she said, "Nope.  The examiner was an old, short, really grumpy lady.  I tried to be friendly and asked her how long she'd been doing this, and she said, "Too long.  Turn right."" 

    When we got home, Sophia asked if she could take the car and go out for her first "solo" drive. 

    She came back, alive, about 20 minutes later. 

    There are five more kids in my daughter's family, and they still have a number of years overseas.  And I thought I was done with that.

Dave

In defense of a break

      Almost every religious practice has a specified day of rest, accompanied by some list of suggestions and rules about what should and should't be done on that day.

    In a college writing class, we were assigned to write a paper in defense of something, and I chose to support the practice of observing a day of rest.  

     I recognized that for many folks, it was part of their obedience to a religion's rules, which by itself could bring feelings of satisfaction and congruence with that system.

    However, I thought that there were other ways that a day with a difference could be beneficial.  It could be a day to slow down and examine how things were going in general, to look ahead and plan or set goals.  Useful visits to other people could be made, some out of duty and others just for grins.  It could be an excuse to read or play an instrument, or do other things for which there didn't seem to be time in the usual schedule.  

    Physically, taking a day off occasionally is prescribed by almost everyone in the exercise sphere.  Giving things a chance to repair looks like it helps in every discipline.  Even the Tour de France has two 'rest days' planted in its arduous schedule.  

    Yeah, but doesn't taking a day off decrease productivity and profit?  Perhaps, and retailers and restaurants recognize that giving customers an extra day to stop by helps the bottom line.  However, if they were not open one day out of seven, wouldn't pushing those visits to the other six days make up for it?  Maybe not completely, but employees and bosses might both benefit, and necessary purchases would likely just be shifted a day either way.

    OK, so as I recall, and it's been over fifty years since the writing assignment, I got an OK grade on the paper.  However, that class was taken during my freshman or sophomore year, before I realized that I needed to get ready for the MCAT's and get better grades to have any chance of getting into medical school.  Yeah, I had fun skiing and messing around those two years, but reality soon ruined the party, and just in time.

    During those fun years, I dated a thoroughly good young woman who had a real influence for better on me.  I liked her a lot, and if she asked me to do something, I did it.  She suggested that I should quit doing schoolwork on Sunday, so I did.  Lo and behold, my grades improved.  She made the same suggestion about attending the weekly Activity Night organized by the Church, and believe it or not, the effect on my schoolwork the other nights of the week seemed to more than make up for it.  Since then, with great relief, even during the most intense times of my medical training I've left studying alone on Sundays, and this has apparently had a good effect.  Rather as evidence of the efficacy of this practice than bragging, I ended up in the top 2.5% of my med school class, and qualified for a top-tier residency training program at Duke. 

    So, should everyone go to church on whatever constitutes their day of rest?  It probably wouldn't hurt.  Being reminded to act with integrity and purpose in life seems like a good thing.  I think that remembering the needs of others less fortunate would help the world.  Even without a religious reason to do so, stopping to think about the higher things in this life would surely help.

     I recognize that for many people in the world, taking a day off is an unrealistic luxury, and that for many of the rest of us, it's a day to just try and claw back to normal for the coming week, much less try and get to some more exalted plane.  

    However, from my admittedly narrow personal experience, I suggest that for whatever reason, you should consider making some day of the week different from the others. 

     Unless this is the first of my blog entries that you've read, you know that I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and yes, we're asked to observe the Sabbath.  Some good-intentioned folks in the faith have come up with restrictive lists of what shouldn't be done on the day.  However, I have learned that there are so many great ways of benefiting from this day that you really don't have to worry about avoiding the 'bad' stuff.  I have a rock-solid belief in the benefits and blessings of the day, and the good that can come from making it different.  

     Give it a try!  And who knows?  Maybe you'll wise up and realize that going to medical school really isn't a good idea after all.    

Dave

IT'S ALIVE!!!

     About 33 years ago, Paula said, "That's it. We have an incredibly ugly back yard.  Do something!" 

 

 Luckily, while staying up one night with one of my patients in labor, I met her husband, an NC State-trained landscape architect, who said, "Lemme take a look."

     The neighbors kindly allowed a backhoe to come up their driveway into the back yard and dig a narrow winding pond.  A liner, a couple tons of big rocks later and - voila!  A pond!  

    All of the kids except one fell (or were pushed) in at one time or another.  

 

One of Paula's friends was visiting one day and they caught her five-year-old tossing things in, including Legos and our oldest daughter's high school diploma.  The grandkids discovered that a whitewater kayak could fit in the pond and how many kids it could actually carry.  

     Ponds attract lots of things, other than the items mentioned above, such as leaves, pine needles, more Legos, and live stuff!  We plunked in some cheap goldfish who called it home and they started having babies.  Frogs somehow found it and did likewise.  Water skimmers, dragonflies and others found it posted on some bulletin board and joined the party.  

     The hospital was rotating out an older microscope that they felt could no longer be cleaned to standards and gave it to me.  I bought some glass slides and cover slips and we looked at some pond slime.

    WOW!  If you though that the macro joint was jumping, the microscopic world was going nuts!  There were rotifers and amoebas, paramecia and water bears, daphnia and volvox, vorticella and spirogyra!  All flitting about eating each other!  How did they get in there?!

    Oh, mistakes were made, wildlife-wise.  Someone kindly offered some tadpoles, which unfortunately turned out to be future bullfrogs.  Unfortunately?  Yeah, the adults are voracious omnivores, meaning that they will eat anything they can fit their gaping mouths around.  Fish, other frogs, baby birds, small children, foreign cars, you name it.  I emailed several herpetologists (people who study such creatures) at big universities and I got back varied answers:  "Learn to love the bullfrogs."  "Get a rifle."  "Drain the pond for three years and you might get rid of them."  It took me three years, a scuba dive light, a long-poled net and moonless nights to finally flip the last huge, wily female out of the pond, chase her across the yard and deposit her in a lake far enough away that she probably couldn't hitch hike back.  

    Our little ecosystem attracted other wildlife.  Bats would silently flutter in to take a drink on the wing. 

 

 Great blue herons put us on their map - what's not to like?  Shallow water?  Color-coded fish that can't go deep? and they'd stock up in winter when the smarter fish in the local lakes went to the bottom.  

 

I saw several hawks carrying away my beloved Southern Green Frogs (Lithobates clamitans) 

 

and the occasional raccoon would drop by to see what was on the menu.  It probably didn't help that the (not very smart) goldfish learned that things they saw moving above the water might be going to feed them, and Hey, let's go see!  

      A family of garter snakes has moved in, and are occasionally spotted catching some sun. 

  

Chipmunks have burrowed homes among the rocks and go skittering around nervously (see "hawks" above). 

    So, being such a wild habitat, it takes care of itself, right?  I wish.  The surrounding plant life figures out that there is free water and sends roots.  Stuff falls in from the trees and accumulates.  Soggy high school diplomas and Legos have to be fished out.  An occasional tree branch punches a hole in the liner, blah, blah, blah.  

    Paula can't stand disorder, and she weeds and cleans around the edges periodically.  However, she has had some close calls leaning over.  She announced one November that she wanted waders for Christmas, so I did my research and found her some good ones. 

    However, I knew that it wouldn't sound good telling people that I had bought my wife fishing waders for Christmas, so I had to get her a cashmere sweater also.  And some other stuff.  Anyway, she delights in her waders and periodically gets in and fixes things up.

    I also get to help muck it out from time to time, and like I mentioned, you find all sorts of stuff.

 

     As above, it's a real ecosystem, attracting all sorts of crazy animals.

     Would we go to the trouble again?  Absolutely!  It has been a magnet for our kids, then grandkids and other creatures, and I love reading by it on quiet summer mornings and evenings, listening to the trickling water.  

    Just don't bring me any unapproved tadpoles, and leave my Lithobates clamitans alone.   

Dave & Paula