A Little Boy's Dream

I was four years old when my love affair with fire trucks began. At the time, it was a pumper with a hook and ladder truck and an ambulance that caught my eye just before Christmas. I still have them, battered and scarred with parts missing from good times. I wish I'd taken better care of them since they're worth many times more than what my parents paid on the collector's market. Not that I'd sell them, because, well, you know, they're a part of my childhood. For everything else there's MasterCard. You can't buy memories -- not like these, anyway.

On that Christmas morning, though, I was in for a bit of a disappointment. The only sets left on the shelf were ones without the ambulance and I really wanted the ambulance most of all. How else can you rescue the people, I thought? Someone has to take them to the hospital because they've been hurt in the "fire." It was a childhood fantasy I later fulfilled as an adult when, in my first pastorate, I volunteered as an ambulance driver. Little did I know, either then or as a four year old, I'd end up a medical student seeing patients in a hospital. The most amazing things creep up on you when you're least expecting them.

Kind of like another little boy's dream, the one you see in the photo. It's a 1936 Chevrolet I saw a few nights ago, parked in front of the Knights of Columbus in Old Town, Maine. Of course, I had to stop and take pictures. How could I not? My guide for the best tour I could have asked for, was a tow-headed little guy about seven or eight years old who happily indulged me by climbing into the back to ring the bell. He was able do that, you see, because his daddy, as he proudly informed me, owned it.

Old Town has a special connection for me which I discovered the same evening, when I noticed a sign on its outskirts identifying it as the home of Old Town Canoes. We paddled Old Towns when I was a Scoutmaster on white water canoeing trips in Southeastern Oklahoma. And there I was, driving through the place where they were made. I don't know, it just struck me as sweet, and it brought back very pleasant memories of sunburns, campfires, and friends far away.

Anyhow, back to the fire truck. Walking around it I noticed a plaque that told me everything I needed to know about the person who owned it and why. If you look closely you can see it, right there on the passenger side. It reads simply, A Little Boy's Dream. Yeah, you guessed it. Daddy wanted a fire truck when he was was young and promised himself one day, when he was all grown up, he'd have one for his very own. And now he does and he shares it with his son.

Who shared it with me.


(Photo copyright 2011 by the author)

Thoughts on Pediatrics from a Cemetery

"Thickly Settled," read the yellow triangular traffic sign. Not the usual warning variety, I'll admit, but it works for Hancock Village, a double row of houses and a Baptist Church situated almost right on the state line between Western Massachusetts and New York. Greater Hancock extends further north, past Jiminy Peak Ski Area, to Williamstown, but the Village itself is smaller. I'm writing, on this warm, quiet-as-a-grave, Sunday morning, appropriately enough, from the Hancock Cemetery. It isn't that I'm particularly fond of cemeteries, but my guess is the dead are less likely to bother interrupting me to ask what I'm doing, so as long as my computer battery holds out, here I sit.

There's nothing like a rotation in pediatrics to remind you how little you know about children. What's this got to do with cemeteries? Nothing, really, I just wanted to share where I was writing from and how I'd gotten there. My real topic is pediatrics. So, anyway, six years as a Scoutmaster I thought might give me some expertise and I suppose it did, at least where boys age 11-18 are concerned.

Theirs was the generation of Arrowsmith and Guns N' Roses and my Bronco II rocked to their beat along the highways and hedges of Texas. Among their fellows I can count my classmates and future colleagues. Does that make me feel old? Hardly -- they got me out of myself and into life in ways that endure to this moment. Because of them, my CRV rocks to Lady Gaga and I'm not afraid to walk into an examining room with a kid with undiagnosed ADHD, bouncing off the walls.

Some things you don't get in the rarefied atmosphere of Scouts. For instance, a little guy who tinkered with the tiny flashlight at the end of my stethoscope, a trinket I claimed from Army recruiters who visited my school a couple of years ago, before allowing me to listen to his breathing. His mother said, more than a little surprised, "He's afraid of men, but he's good with you..." I resisted pushing the envelope to look in his ears. He didn't like the idea and I wasn't willing to risk our nascent therapeutic alliance, shaky as it was already. Besides, the nurse practitioner would have to do it immediately after me and once was my patient's limit. I'll see him eventually for a follow-up visit and hope the rudiments of our friendship are still intact.

There are little girls, seven going on 27, and others so shy they can't tear their eyes away from the shadow of daddy's chest and it's a challenge to do anything. We manage, sometimes with tears and mostly without, for which I'm grateful. A visit to the doctor can be traumatic even when there's a lollypop waiting at the end of it. Kids need to know coming to see the likes of me isn't always a reason to be sad.

It's more the therapist in me than anything else, whispering the wisdom of Carl Rogers, i.e. every patient deserves unconditional positive regard, whether they're old enough to put it into words or not. A smile, a wave goodbye, or the five year old who insisted I get a sucker, too, it all spells out the same. We find a space outside fear and uncertainty where we can connect.

I'll walk to my car sometime around five or six in the afternoon, dog tired.

And feeling good.


(Photo of historic Hancock Cemetery copyright2011 by the author)

Cranberry Sauce by the Fire

It's windy this morning, usually not a good thing. A little breeze is fine and velocities from 10-20 mph, even up to 30 now and then are okay, but lately there have been days when the speedometer has flirted with 50 and that's when my internal warning sirens go off. Unlike Colorado or Illinois, Maine is heavily forested as readers from New England well know, and it's the trees that generate my concern.

In Boulder, the wind comes swirling off the mountains, swooping down a long corridor paralleling the Flat Irons (photo), and slamming into town like a freight train out of control. We have trees, of course, but they're not nearly as dense as they are in my back yard or along the lane to the east. When power lines go down in Colorado, it's more often due to heavy, wet, early winter or late-spring snows.

The unpredictability or perhaps better, the predictability of losing power at some point is why I'm writing this post now, while I can. I'd love to get back to Pink Hats and a Mack Truck because, frankly, I'm just as eager as I hope you are to see how things turn out with Dr. Bob and the twins. Some writers work from an outline and have a story fleshed out in advance of its development. I take my clue from Stephen White who freely admits he has no idea how a novel is going to unfold until he gets to the end. I like that; it allows the unconscious to work and express itself spontaneously.

My plan, as of last night, was to have morning coffee with Dr. Bob and see what he's been up to -- until the vigorous sound of waves washing up on the beach drug me from a sound sleep and I noticed trees swaying precariously through the window. Two weeks ago, while I was basking in 60 degree weather on my Champaign patio, anxiously buried in cardiology or some other medical -ology or -ary, a white pine on my property split two stories up from the ground and sent wood flying into the power lines, blocking the road and inconveniently blacking out my neighbors across the creek. I hope that doesn't happen again but you never really know.

The upshot of all this is the cranberries and home-made rolls I want prepare for tomorrow's dinner with my best friend's family need to take precedence over pleasure, so I'd better get cracking. If we're lucky, the lights will stay on and the oven hot. If not, Thanksgiving dinner might turn out to be a can of soup warmed up in the fireplace. As disappointing as that sounds, it reminds me of wonderful evenings around the campfire with Boy Scouts and their fathers. At least the soup will be accompanied by fresh cranberry sauce and who can complain about that?


(Creative Commons image via Wikipedia)

Home at Last

To borrow a line from the last line of Tolkien's The Return of the King, I'm back. Home at last. From Champaign to near Cleveland on Thursday, then Cleveland to Maine yesterday. That's not as bad as the trip out, Maine to South Chicago in one long trek. Honestly, I wasn't trying to set any speed records or prove I could still do at (muffled words) years that I could have at half my age; it was more by accident than design. I haven't told you that tale? Well, shame on me.

I left on the Friday before classes were to begin and thought I'd drive until I got tired, stop, and start up again the next day, more or less aiming for Indiana. By the time I got to South Bend, home of Notre Dame University and the South Bend fishing tackle company, I was ready to hit the sack. Finding an available room, however, was nearly as difficult as coming up with the cash called for by even a no-tell motel, one of the "We'll leave the red light on for you" variety. And why was that, you may ask? It was a Notre Dame football weekend.

Did it occur to me to check the football schedule? Nope, and if it had, do you think I would have considered this to pose a problem? Right again. My Boy Scout training, i.e. Be Prepared, failed me -- don't tell any of my former Scouts, please, they'll never let me live it down.

The night manager of a Micro-Tel told me the cold, hard facts of life: the best deal I was going to find would closely approximate Saturday's Power Ball Lottery jackpot and require the license and title to my first born as proof of my credit-worthiness. Off-season opportunities to make a buck were too good to pass up and free enterprise being what it is, the cost of a bed rose accordingly. Having neither won the lottery (yet) nor had a first born with me I could offer as collateral, I headed on to Chicago.

The lights of a Super 8 loomed near the cutoff for Highway 57 South, my lifeline to Champaign, and I took that as a sign. The bed was incredibly comfortable as was its counterpart in the Super 8 my roommate and I shared in Peoria, and four hours later I was sipping coffee and channel surfing the car radio in Illinois corn country, while munching maple oat muffins for breakfast that I'd brought with me for the occasion.

The adrenaline that powered my trip West was a fond memory on the way home. All I wanted was to be bowled over by ninety pounds of Yellow Labrador charging through the door and every "now" I could think of wasn't soon enough. I had hoped to get as far as Buffalo when hunger and cognitive decline, aka sleepiness, took over and I ended up spending the night in what I took for Akron, Ohio. It wasn't Akron, but that story is for another post. It's a good one, though, so stay tuned.


(Public Domain image of Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo via Wikipedia)

The Heart of a Gentleman

Yesterday was one of those nearly intolerable Maine summer days that make me wonder if I've time-warped back to Boy Scout camp on a tolerable summer day in East Texas. With a dew point near 70 degrees, it was so humid I thought we should rename the town, Fort Sauna. There was a fort here once, back in the day -- archeologists have uncovered evidence of it -- so the name is not completely off the mark, it's just that no one calls this part of the country Fort Anything, anymore.

Since it was so muggy, I decided dinner would be best followed by frozen yogurt, the kind with all the flavor and none of the fat, so I drove up to the local grocer for a barrel or two (not quite, but I felt like it). As I was preparing to leave for home, I noticed a young couple walking toward a pickup truck in the parking lot. Now, this being the eastern fingertip of rural America, trucks are as plentiful as tourists at the beach on Memorial Day Weekend.

He was tall, maybe six feet or so, and she was diminutive and slender, a Mutt and Jeff couple as my mother used to say. Both were in jeans and T-shirts, the local non-dress uniform for off-duty hours, and if this was date night, it spelled a movie and pizza at home. Yesterday's post was fresh on my mind and as they got to their truck, I noticed him opening the passenger side door and waiting with a smile while she climbed in.

Sure, the door was locked, but he could have gotten in the driver's side and reached over to unlock it, allowing her to stand there in the heat and humidity. But he didn't; instead, he was considerate and took care of her before taking care of himself. I have no idea about their relationship status and it doesn't really matter. What he exemplified was the generosity that lies at the heart of being a gentleman.

When a man is adequate unto himself, when he has sufficient ego-integrity that he doesn't need to rely on others to compensate for his own character deficits, he is capable of giving of himself freely, without expectation of return. I realize I could be accused of reading too much into gentlemanly behavior, but I really believe it does come down to the willingness to put someone else first. That's the essence of the message we're sending when we hold a door, assist with a coat, or take out the trash without being asked. There is enough of "us" to go around, we don't have to keep it all to ourselves.


(Creative Commons image of Mutt and Jeff by mghode1 via Flickr)

A Small Town Afternoon

If I was Doc Hollywood, this could be Grady. It certainly felt like it today. Sometime in 1772, someone decided this part of Maine looked like home and that's when my town, loosely so-called, was born. Although it's mostly farming country now, years ago there was a mill located on the river bordering my hayfield, and old photographs depict loggers riding islands of timber like acrobats in Cirque du Soleil.

For two days each July, you can wander the grounds of a national historical site (photo), a mansion built in 1805, watch frog jumping and ladies' pan toss contests (the latter has to be like an egg toss only more risky), and munch cotton candy. Everyone from the Boy Scouts to local politicians and craftsmen/women set up tables, announcing to the world, here we are -- right here -- you can find our coordinates on your GPS. Making new friends is as easy as extending your hand.

Saturday morning there is a parade replete with marching band, antique cars, and a local hobbyist pulling a flat-bed trailer with a gigantic miniature railroad set up on its surface. The Masons or Elks, I never got which, drove a series of go-carts, each one dressed up like a life-sized 18 wheeler, and a group of lovely young ladies clad in wedding dresses walked along behind them. Being the equivalent of the Village Idiot, I chose this morning to drive to the veterinarian's, only to find myself weaving in and out of the parade as it gathered -- the cop who brought up the rear thought my foolishness more worthy of a laugh than a ticket. Such are the people here.

In the fall, county fairs spring up all over Maine, reminding you that this portion of New England is rural. We may have cities on the coast and ski resorts in the mountains, but in between are a collection of communities that dot the field and forested landscape like freckles on a kid's face. Tonight, for those so inclined, there will be a bean supper with fireworks afterward. I'm passing on the meal, no pun intended, but the fireworks are tempting.

This is a small town afternoon and small town life at its best. Uncomplicated, straightforward, no nonsense, and no posturing. Accept us as we are and we'll do likewise. Children taking pony rides, mom and dad taking pictures, grandparents taking their time, sitting in the shade. And tonight, there will be fireworks. Can it get any better than this?


(Photo by the author, copyright 2010)

Scouting Surgery

Little did my grandmother know what she was doing when she placed needle and thread in my hands, saying, "Some day you'll be glad you know what to do with these." She thought she was enabling me to take care of myself as an adult, by showing me how to repair torn clothing and darn socks. What she really did was get me ready for this morning's clinic on suturing techniques.

Now, it's true that stitching together two halves of an open wound or surgical incision isn't quite the same thing as hemming a pair of pants or applying decorative buck-stitching to saddle parts in my father's shop, but at least the concept is familiar. And, fortunately, you don't have to run a tiny piece of nylon monofilament through an even tinier needle's eye first, or patients would bleed to death before we even got started. Can't you see it? Some poor guy's lying on a gurney, crying, "Doc, you gotta help me!"

"Yes, yes, I know. Just be 'patient' -- pardon the pun -- it will be a few more minutes while I get this thing threaded," replies the doctor, squinting and poking with gloved fingers at a target s/he needs a magnifying glass to find. No, sutures come ready-made with nice, curved needles that pierce the skin easily -- including yours, if you're not careful.

The trick involves learning to place them while clamping the needle with a pair of forceps in one hand and holding the skin with tweezers in the other. It's like standing in the batter's box with a bat in each hand, trying to hit the ball with both as it passes over the plate. Ambidexterity would be helpful at a time like this and the truth is, when coordination was passed out, my left hand was out to lunch. Obviously, I need practice -- a lot of practice.

Knot-tying is easier and I have Boy Scouts to thank for that. The technique is slightly different, but a square knot is a square knot, whether it's connected to a bridge constructed of rope or securing a suture in place. They don't give out merit badges for the best surgical knots, but after banging my head against the wall through three years of basic science, it will be fun playing "Scoutmaster," once again. Don't tell my surgical preceptors I said this -- they'll probably expect me to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together and that's just too much like work.


(Creative Commons image of Square Knot sculpture by jcarwash31 via Flickr)

The Lessons of Scouting

I'm not going to chase the topic of Gays in the military this morning, though I feel like I have to mention it because it has some connection to where I'm actually going. It seems to me a moot point, because there already are Gay men and women in the military. They've been there for a long time, very likely going back to 1776.
Homosexuality is not an invention of the 20th century."Don't ask, don't tell" strikes me as playing make-believe. But I realize change occurs slowly, for better or worse, and it took a long time before we realized African-Americans had the right to be granted equal status within the Corps.

For several years I was an adult leader in the Boy Scouts. What has gained Scouting national attention over the past few years has been it's position on homosexuality. I've always thought that whole state of affairs was unfortunate, because at the time of my involvement, Scouting was (and still is, by the way) an opportunity to work with our sons or sons of those we knew and help them move toward developing their potential as leaders. From that standpoint, it was an incredible experience. I'd even go so far as to say it was one of the best of my adult life.

Ours was a small troop but that worked to our advantage because it permitted everyone to participate and have some responsibility. The parents, mostly dads, and I took our kids camping, rock climbing, white water canoeing, and spent a week each summer fighting off mosquitoes in the Texas heat at summer camp. The boys sold fertilizer and trash bags, door to door, to raise money for our operating expenses and completed service projects in the community. By the time my tenure was over, if a year went by without one of the guys earning his Eagle badge, we made it up with two the next.

Becoming an Eagle Scout is not a guarantee of success in life, but it does seem to help. I won't list all the famous persons who've earned the rank, you can check that out by following this link. What is important about it, as I see it, is the way it serves as a rite of initiation. I've witnessed boys walk into an Eagle council, where adult leaders evaluate his accomplishments and make the final determination as to whether he has earned the rank, and walk out young men. The transformation was literally visible. I don't know how it happened, I just know it did and it always left me in awe.

Unlike most of the adult leaders I've known, for a number of reasons that aren't important, I wasn't a Boy Scout growing up. Did I miss anything? If I did, I gained it as an adult leader and mostly from the boys themselves. By helping them establish maturing identities and grow in self-awareness, I grew in much the same ways. They taught me how to enjoy life, embracing it fully, and not worry about making a fool of myself. Do I ever owe them for that one. In a lot of ways, we learned the lessons of Scouting together. They learned how to lead and I learned how to parent. It was a true collaboration and I'm grateful to have been a part of it.


(Image of unknown licensing via Wikipedia)

Kidney Stones on the Fourth

Up until the moment I found myself throwing up in my aunt's bathroom, it had been a pretty typical Fourth of July. Visiting family on the Western Slope of the Rockies, my uncle and I had spent the day trout fishing on Black Mountain where he and my father grew up (see 11/26/09).

I assumed it was the 24 hour stomach flu rather than food poisoning, because we'd all eaten the same things and I was the only one with his head in the diagonal dimension diver. After doubling over with pain, however, it was time to visit the local hospital. X-Rays revealed a tiny pebble in my left ureter -- the usually fairly flattened fleshy tube that runs from kidney to bladder. Yep, you guessed it, a kidney stone.

Fast forward to February of the following year. I'm back in the hospital, only this time closer to home, with the equivalent of a gravel pit in my left kidney. Two surgeries and 21 days later I was discharged with the rudiments of a scar along my stomach that, when swimming with my Scout Troop, would make the younger boys ask wide-eyed, "Were you wounded in Viet Nam?" Not quite, but it sure felt like it at the time.

There's nothing like being a patient to teach you how to empathize with your patients. Vital signs at 5.30 AM and just as I'm about to get back to sleep, a smiling face says it's time for breakfast. Whoever suggested hospitals were a place of rest ought to have their head examined. The hardest part was having to cough after surgery to clear my lungs of mucus. When you've got a fresh incision in your gut that makes you breathe cautiously to begin with, coughing is pure hell.

It's easy to lose track of time in the hospital. When I went in, it was the dead of winter, when I got out, it felt like early spring. Morphine (the only thing that even touched the pain) not only distorts your perception of time, but also people. I was thoroughly enjoying a visit with a girlfriend one night when I realized she wasn't who I thought she was. No, I didn't tell her my mistake -- I may have been dopey, but not that dopey.

What made all of it bearable and sometimes enjoyable, was the care I received from the staff. They were wonderful, even at the crack of dawn. 21 days is unheard of now, and I was fortunate to have the experience. It's one thing to work with patients every day. It's another to do so having been one myself, knowing how vulnerable a person can feel, and how much difference kindness can make. Maybe that's why hospitals don't feel like institutions to me anymore and instead, feel a little like home.


(Creative Commons Image of kidney stone by Bradley P. Johnson via Flickr)

The Ice Man Cometh

I'm surprised to be writing this morning. Last night a drizzle of freezing rain drenched the northeast from stem to stern and I awoke this morning amazed to find we still had power. That, however, didn't last very long. Just as I learned nearly 80,000 Mainers in nearby towns were without power, the television went black and the lights went out. We were prepared though, and I lit the fireplace and set a pot of water in the coals to boil.

It was just like scouting and the memories filled my mind as quickly as smoke from the Franklin Stove began to stream into the room. Don't ever buy a Franklin, or at least the old fashioned variety with the small firebox. Not only are they inefficient, they easily smoke. So, off we went to my study which also has a fireplace and settled in for what we hoped would be a pleasant, cozy day. It's still a pleasant and cozy day but now that the power's back on (for however long), it's a little more convenient. For one thing, I almost ran to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Readers who are also students will identify with my urgency, I've no doubt.

I mentioned a fireplace in my study -- please don't get me wrong, we're not wealthy, just extremely fortunate to rent a home in a part of the Country where fireplaces are a staple. This one dates to the late 1770s and I love to imagine Colonial Americans gathered by it just as are we, waiting for the ice to thaw and the roads to clear.

One of my favorite authors is David Elton Trueblood, a Quaker philosopher and theologian who passed away several years back. I was honored to meet him while in seminary one evening. I saw him in the cafeteria, eating alone, and asked if I might join him. He was kind, gracious, and extraordinarily modest, especially for someone who had published more books than I had fingers and toes and who had been the friend of Presidents.

Anyhow, he wrote somewhere (when I find the source, I'll let you know): "A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit." Knowing Trueblood, he was probably referring to an awareness that we are all connected and when we act in regard for that connectedness and not out of self-interest, we are learning what it means to be truly human.

On a cold, icey day in December, while many are staying in shelters, we are able to remain at home thanks to an aging physician who owned this farm and decided it was a good thing to plant a few "shade trees." I hope your day is just as wonderful as ours.