How's your connection with God?

Against major odds, I have managed to reach (to get all fancy about it) three score and fifteen years of age, with enough disabilities on my chart that my Primary Care Physician sometimes asks, “So anyway, how’s your connection with God?”

I think he’s just joking. At least, I hope he is.

He’s a very good doctor, with intense Indian eyes (India Indian, not American Indian). I’m not sure about his sense of humor.

The first time I met him as a patient, he went down through the impressive list of maladies that were – and still are – conspiring to do me in. When he was finished, I asked, half-jokingly, how long I had to live.

He laughed. “Well, I don’t’ think we’re quite there yet,” he said.

But from there on, that joke became a fixture of our doctor-patient relationship.

Until, last time I met with him after a three-day hospital stay for a suspected case of pulmonary embolism, he checked me out briefly with his stethoscope and muttered, “Bad lungs, bad heart, bad blood! How’s your connection with God, now?”

This time, I’m not sure he was kidding.

But as it turns out, the report of my impending death was an exaggeration (to misquote the frequently misquoted Mark Twain.) I don’t actually have a blood clot on my lung.

That’s what I learned a few days after the appointment with my PCP.

My pulmonary specialist actually checked the CT-scan results that the hospital had based the diagnosis on and found that there was no pulmonary embolism, praise the Lord. Just a mild case of pneumonia.

However, because of that bad diagnosis, I’m taking some expensive medicine that I apparently never needed. And because I need my primary care doctor to tell me to stop taking it, I need the pulmonary guy to send him a letter about his findings.

Not as simple as it sounds, apparently. That letter has taken three days of unanswered voice messages and I still don’t have it.

I’m starting to find this not so darned funny, after all.

Take A Slug Of History With Laird's

I live just a ways down the road from the oldest distillery in America.  In 1698 Alexander Laird booked passage on the Caledonia and emigrated from County Fife, Scotland, to the British colony now known as America.  His sons Thomas and William came with him.  William settled in what would eventually become Monmouth County, New Jersey.  Apparently William had been a distiller of Scotch back in Scotland.  Old William might have had a hard time finding barley where he settled but he had no problem at all finding apples.  He began distilling Applejack for his own use and then, of course, for his friends and neighbors.  Naturally William's children learned the family secret recipe and in 1780 Robert Laird established America's first commercial distillery.  Robert Laird had served in George Washington's Revolutionary War Army so when the general asked for the secret Applejack recipe he got it and started distilling it himself.  Applejack has an important place in our country's history.  Abraham Lincoln sold it in his New Salem, Illinois, tavern.  His saloon license lists the price of a half pint as twelve cents.  For a half cent more you could sleep in the saloon but if you wanted a meal you had to fork over twenty-five cents.  William Henry Harrison apparently loved Applejack to excess.  And in June, 1967, when Lyndon Johnson met with Soviet Premier Alexei Kozygin at the Summit in Glassboro, New Jersey, he gave the Soviet leader a case of Laird's Applejack.  I'm pretty sure that a daily slug of Laird's Applejack doesn't provide the same health benefits as an apple a day but it might, if you are an experiential learner, increase your understanding of this country's history.

Oslo-The Play at the Vivian Baumont Lincoln Center Theater

It's hard to believe that two hours and forty-five minutes could go by so quickly.  But it did. With less than two dozen characters and very little action, the play tells the true story of the Oslo Peace

accords which began first in secret and which ultimately led to the September 13, 1993, signing  by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas of a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements.  This document became known as the 'Oslo Accord'.  In it Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. Both sides agreed that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period. Then, permanent status talks on the issues of borders, refugees, and Jerusalem would be held. While President Bill Clinton’s administration played a limited role in bringing the Oslo Accord into being, it would invest vast amounts of time and resources in order to help Israel and the Palestinians implement the agreement. By the time Clinton left office, however, the peace process had run aground, and a new round of Israeli-Palestinian violence had begun.  The play speaks not of the long term success of the Oslo Accord but of the ability of people to come together and at least try to create peace.

At least, he seemed presidential ...

Ten things you can say about Trump’s Feb. 28 address to Congress:

1.    He looked presidential, with his suit coat buttoned and with a nice blue-and-white striped necktie that didn’t hang halfway to his knees.

2.    He actually sounded presidential, speaking in a pleasant, conversational tone  instead of his usual ranting and raving.

3.    He didn’t mention “carnage” or “tombstones”.

4.    He didn’t rail against the media, not even once.

5.    He didn’t sound as if he were teetering on the brink of insanity.

6.    He stuck to what he read on the teleprompter, except for one moment when he backed away from the podium to honor a slain Navy Seal.

7.    He trotted out many of the falsehoods that have been a Trump trademark. He touted a $1 trillion infrastructure program, but never mentioned deficits.

8.    He still needs a presidential speech writer. Someone keeps slipping things like  “radical Islamic terrorism” into his speeches. BAD.

9.    He had one truly extraordinary moment, his tribute to Navy SEAL Ryan Owens.

10.  However, by keeping the standing applause going and going while the grieving widow, Carryn Owens, stood with tears streaming down her face, he made the tribute seem more like an exploitation. Way to go, Mr. President.

Here's Where The Healing Happens

We have a grove of sassafrass trees in our front yard.  Before moving to New Jersey I'd never heard of a sassafrass tree and now I'm responsible for several.
Sassafrass trees are native to this part of the country.  Their wood was at one time used for ship building and, oddly enough, for making toothbrushes.  The bark is used for flavor in root beer, tea, and Louisiana creole dishes.  We just use our sassafrass trees for amazement.
Actually, my responsibilities for these trees are minimal.  They can pretty much take care of themselves except for the big guy closest to the street and featured in this photograph.  The picture doesn't even come close to capturing its size and majesty.  The trunk's circumference is at least five feet and the branches reach skyward over seventy feet.  Our house, built in the early 1800s, was getting up in years before the Civil War started.  Our tree expert believes that this big sassafrass tree was around before the Revolutionary War began.  You might ask why we have a tree expert and so I'll tell you.  Years ago a good part of the tree's upper trunk sheared off and since I wanted to keep the tree healthy and living for as long as possible I called in an expert who declared the tree healthy but in need of trimming.  He and his crew cut off the upper trunk and trimmed some of the heavier branches.  Right now the trees are bare.  Come spring their branches will be full of leaves and the birds' nests will once again be hidden.
Trees such as this are gifts deserving appreciation and respect.  That's my main responsibility for this tree and it's grove friends.  I with honor assume that responsibility.
There are some holes in the tree's trunk where it is trying to heal old wounds.  I guess all of us are a lot like that big, old sassafrass tree.  We have  holes in our trunks where our healing happens.

Clearly A Loss Of Control

Yesterday I went to my local public library to return two books.  My plan was to enter the building no further than the book return bin and then leave as quickly as possible.  Since I know the way to that bin I had even taken the liberty of placing a blind fold over my eyes to avoid distraction.  Yes, people might have stared but I deemed that a small price to pay for the quick, book less exit.
I'm certain you know the rest of this story without my having to tell it but tell it I shall. 
I heard the return books hit the bottom of the bin.  That sound was more than I could bear.  It echoed not only in my imagination but in my soul.  My spirit turned as dark as I imagined the bottom of that bin to be.  I tore off the blind fold and as always succumbed to the library's siren call.  I entered its sacred space despite the fact that I already had four unread books at home.
Yesterday I returned two and left with another four.  Once home I reverently placed my new literary wonders in the place I reserve for my library books.  I marveled at the card cataloguing labels on the spines of my new additions.
Loving library books is, I imagine, a little like fostering rescued dogs and cats.  You know you have to give them up one day and you know you will feel sad but, wow, what a joy to have them in your home at least for a little while.
There's also a lot of pressure in loving library books.  They must be read before that final renewal period ends.
Dogs, cats, and library books.  All precious and just here for a little while.  But, then, I guess all of us are just here for a little while.
So I shall begin once again reading my library book.  I'm confident I will finish this one and cognizant I will never finish all of the books on my 'to read' list.
Life goes on.

Easy Rawlins Is Back

I just finished reading the book pictured on the left.  I'm a sucker for a good mystery or a good action adventure book but only if I'm grabbed and sucked in no later than the fifth page.  I especially like recurring central characters who live and work in cities I know.  Walter Mosley writes about Los Angeles as do Robert Crais and Jonathan Kellerman.  Raymond Chandler also wrote about Los Angeles.  Lee Child's Jack Reacher wanders the globe but it never takes me five pages to become mesmerized by his writing.  I also like the Mitch Rapp character created by the late Vince Flynn.  George Pelecanos seems to set his stories in Washington DC.  I've only been there twice but after reading a few of his books I feel like I'm beginning to walk the same streets.  Pelecanos has written only two books using the same central character:  The Cut and The Double.  I'm hoping he writes more featuring Spero Lucas but if he doesn't that's okay.  He's written plenty of other books.  A student recommended Valerie Wilson Wesley.  I wasn't grabbed by page five but I finished that book and checked another out of the library.  I'm willing to give her a chance because she bases her stories in New Jersey and I feel like I could benefit from a richer taste of my new home.  I also enjoy Sue Grafton, Nevada Barr, Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs and anyone else who sucks my in by page five.  And, yes, I hide in a closet to read Patricia Cornwell on my Nook because she created, in my opinion, a really great character in Kay Scarpetta.  Don't tell anyone about that last author.  On the other hand, everyone should have a secret vice.