Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Summer Evenings

This evening I put my little guy to bed.  I lay beside his bed and waited for him to drift off. As I did so I was amazed at all the distractions that fill the ears of a young boy, tired, but reluctantly putting another summer day behind him. The whole experience was totally familiar and surprisingly fresh in my recollection just 50 short years after my being in his unhappy position.

Lying there in a bedroom still filled with the light of a summer evening is hard enough. Your eyes remind you that you do not belong here, you belong out there. You belong out there where your ears hear those kids passing by on bikes, voices singing out as their chains tap against the chain-guard with each revolution of the pedals.  Yes, you really can hear that. You belong out there where that dog is barking.  It's not the sound of alarm but rather the happy yap of a mutt at play. And, yes, you really can hear the difference.

And in the house Mom is on the phone. And then Mom is talking to sister. And they're not saying goodnight. And the dinner is done and the dishes put away but someone is still having a bowl of something because you can hear the spoon tap against the glass sides of a bowl. Oh, right. Mom was waiting to have her strawberry shortcake.

So many things are difficult and seem unfair when you're 4 years old. I can tell him this, however: Hard as it may be to find rest and slumber, the memory of all these sounds of a summer evening will someday return and reimburse him for any suffering incurred by having to go to bed before the day was done. These sounds are among the happiest of childhood memories.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Owosso Community Airport

In my small town we are fortunate to have a public airport.  This is a rural area and so when you drive about it's not too infrequent that you might see a wind sock and a clear strip of grass in a bean field.  But we have a nice airport with a paved runway, terminal building, a gas pump (no Jet A), a popular little cafe open only on the weekends, and a collection of hangars and taxiways befitting a Monopoly board.

I've always liked things that go and that includes airplanes.  But, until just the past few years, I've never had much appreciation for small planes and small airports  Waiting to board a nice big jet while sitting in a lounge at LAX was my idea of good times at the airport.

My wife grew up with an airplane and a grass strip in her backyard.  Her family has more pilots than Catholics have kids.  She's a pilot.  And her dad.  And her aunt.  And uncle. And.....you get the picture.  It is through her that I started to hang out at the Owosso Community Airport with its coming and going of small planes.  If someone shows up here with a twin engine Cessna people take notice.  That may not mean much if you don't know planes but, trust me on this, it means something if you do.

What I've discovered is this:  Pilots and the people that hang around small airports tend to be a super-nice bunch.  They like people that like small airports and small planes, the sound of of airplanes flying over head, the smell of av-gas, talking about airplanes, and, especially, little kids that like airplanes.

It's Saturday morning and I'm in town for the weekend.  That means we'll be heading over to the airport soon to the Crosswinds Cafe for breakfast.  And when we're done eating we'll head outside and do something else you can do at this small town airport: sit and watch the airplanes while Evan rides his bike. It's taken close to 20 years buts it's another reason I've come to enjoy living smack dab in the middle of Michigan

Friday, June 24, 2011

A Sense of Community

My lucky brother is retired.  Not only is he retired, he is busy, and happily so.  He and his wife ride bikes and travel, much of it your usual retirement fare.  But they also have started to play bluegrass music. Both my brother and his wife decided a few years back to take up an instrument in retirement.  He labors away on the guitar and she on a violin.

Luckier still, they live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, a city populated by people who know how to live and choose to be part of the game rather than simply populate the sidelines.  An example of that spirit manifests itself in Taborgrass, a local effort to bring aspiring bluegrass musicians together to learn, well, how to be bluegrass musicians.

Recently my brother sent along a link which included a video of their spring concert.  I dialed in the other morning and watched the whole 60-plus minute production.  I'm not the world's biggest bluegrass fan although I do enjoy it in small doses. But this was great. More than just the music, I was struck by the beautiful portrayal of community illustrated by this group, standing and sitting together, plugging away at producing a beautiful and common sound.  As I watched the concert I couldn't help but think this is what it is to be a successful community. Although a racially homogeneous group, there certainly does appear to be a good variety of age, gender, and personality types.  Everyone is in their version of a white shirt but, even in that, there is variety.  But the end product is a beautiful sound, a sound which every member of this diverse group is applying their skill to accomplish. Wouldn't it be great if we all lived our lives in the same fashion as the members of this orchestra, working with every effort made to ensure the success of all? Truly a community. Check it out.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Memories Of My (mother) Father

I did dishes after dinner the other evening.  I found myself carefully washing out a large styrofoam tub and its lid we had brought home from the Chinese restaurant the day before. I'm thinking, "why waste a perfectly good container with a well fitting lid when all it would do otherwise is occupy space in a landfill for the next 3 to 4 thousand years?  This will be good for something."  And then it struck me:  This is exactly the type of thing my mother would do that drove me crazy as a kid.

If you had opened our refrigerator in 1968 you would have found all manner of containers enjoying a second, third, or fourth incarnation.  Cottage cheese?  Not on your life.  That would be left-over mashed potatoes.  See?  Look at the masking tape label.  And that jar? Lemonade? No. That would be potato water.  And that coffee can?  Bacon grease.

Here I am 40+ years later doing pretty much the same thing.  I have a cupboard full of empty cottage cheese and sour cream containers awaiting the call to return to service. My wife is tolerant but I'm dumbstruck:  How does one end up doing the very things they most despised in a parent's behavior?  With respect to mom there are a few traits I'd like to divorce.

But today is Father's Day.  For learning kindness, caring about the welfare of others and for knowing concern, I thank my dad.  For a sense of style and believing in the importance of appearance when meeting with those who come to me for help, I thank my Dad.  For the love of trains, planes and automobiles, it's Dad. But to be clear, and for the record, I do not ever foresee a time when I'll be strolling about in a red velour jumpsuit. Smoking a pipe?  Well, maybe.  But not any time soon. And never while using the bathroom.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Innie vs. Outie

I've had a busy week at work and I'm on call now through the weekend.  This afternoon I was done early.  Being tired and not knowing what the weekend holds in store all I wanted to do was lie around and rest on the couch. That, unfortunately, is the problem.  I lie here and I see those big white clouds crossing the blue sky and I feel guilty for not being out there.  I should be walking/running/riding my bike instead of laying around here indoors. It drives my wife and little son crazy how I could prefer indoor inactivities to out.

People are surprised when I say I don't care for daylight savings time and summer weather.  I enjoy a bike ride occasionally, and I usually walk back and forth to the hospital, but basically I'm an inside kindaguy. It's only late spring but the temperatures are well into the 70's and 80's and it really is beautiful outside. Here in Michigan we only get 3, maybe 4, months of hospitable weather and people like to squeeze every last drop of daylight out of the day when it's like this.

Perhaps I need to move my practice to Iceland or Norway, somewhere dark and cool and overcast.  That way I can stay inside and write and draw and otherwise waste my time with a conscience as clear as the blue Michigan summer sky.  Only I'd get bored pretty quick: I'd be living there alone.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Chemistry of Coffee

If you study chemistry at the college level there are two things you should definitely come away with: an understanding of the importance of accuracy and the ability to measure with precision.  I have two years of college chemistry under my belt.  It's been 34 years or so but I like to think it's still in there.

Funny, though, how just the smallest things can really shake one's self-confidence. Take, for instance, making coffee.  It's simple: One scoop for every cup.  Or is it?  Is that one tablespoon or one teaspoon?  Is that a 6 ounce cup or one of the 10 to 12 ounce cups used more frequently these days? And those little measuring scoops you buy-- you can't convince me they're all the same volume. Yet, in spite of all those significant question marks I forge ahead and make coffee on the weekends,

If this were organic chemistry and my wife were good ol' Dr. Hudak I'm not sure I would still be going on to medical school.  But I take comfort in the uncontrolled variables above.  It's not me.  I have the training. I remember the rules.  I kinda measure. No. It's not me, it's the equipment!

Wing Shots

My wife says I have enough wing shots.  She may be right.  It seems like every flight I’m on where the wing is visible and I’ve got a camera I snap a shot.  Sometimes even at night. This has been going on for years.

For whatever reason I love the image of those wings set against the background of the wild blue yonder. I love airplanes and I love to fly.

Of the two most dangerous things in the world they say one is a doctor piloting an airplane. I don’t do that.  My wife can but I’ve always had the wisdom to realize I would not be the sharpest tool in the drawer when it comes to the operation of an engine powered heavier than air flying machine.  I leave that job to others whose only concern is the operation of that type vehicle.

Native Americans long ago claimed that to take a photograph was to capture the soul of the thing.  Thus they long avoided the photographer’s lens.  It is one of the features of the work of Edward S. Curtis that makes his images so remarkable:  He was able to pose the Native American in full regalia and capture their images for posterity.  Some feel his bribery and trespass was tantamount to theft but he did preserve a somewhat authentic image of a great society fallen and about to disappear into the abyss of modern western industrial life.

My aim is not so high and my subjects neither endangered or noble.  But I do think I am trying to take a piece of that airplane, that flight, home with me.  I think I want that great wing cutting through the dark blue of flight at 6 miles high to become a part of me.  So, if you wouldn’t mind just leaning back a bit……
                                                              

License to Thrill

For the past couple of years or so I've found myself looking at BMX bikes.  Not the motorcycles but the bicycles that outlaw teens and young adults ride around the neighborhood, often in the evening hours, always en route to a trespass involving stairs, curbs, walkways and railings.  These are the direct descendants of those bikes featured in the movie E.T. all those years ago and which, even then, if you'll remember, were being used in the defiance of authority.

I've seen these bikes in bike shops and wondered, are they as much fun to ride as my old stingray? Not that I would. I mean I would be too embarrassed to even ask to slip one around the block on a quick test drive. I couldn't. Nothing is worse than watching a mature man trying to act beyond his years--- in reverse. The inverse of seeing a 15 year old smoking a cigarette. But when I was a kid I had a stingray, small s, because it was actually a look-alike made by Murray to compete with the more expensive Schwinn.  The Murray had a knobby for the back tire which definitely didn't offer the same je ne sais quoi as the Schwinn's slick.  But it was cooler than no stingray at all and I could jump curbs and do wheelies of sorts.

Unlike the old stingrays of yesteryear these BMX babies ring in at $300 - $400 min and have seats small enough to fit deep between the buns of a guy my age. Dangerous. As it turns out, however, one doesn't sit when riding a BMX bike. How, might you ask, would I know?

As much as I hate becoming that writer whose stories are forever incorporating one of his children, I'll forge ahead: Recently we were in one of those massive sporting goods stores that sells everything.  Two floors and a escalator to connect them.  They have everything from lacrosse gear to tents and fly rods. I can't even remember why we went in the first place but we quickly got busy and tried the miniature basketballs, played catch with a small football, spent 20 minutes on the indoor putting green, and then stumbled upon the bikes at which point we immediately decided Evan needed a bike for Phoenix. And there they were: BMX bikes.  And like my Murray stingray of 1966, these were affordably priced.

I still had the age and image issue to hurdle. And then fate took a hand:  Evan found a sweet little blue number with training wheels and immediately took off on a massive indoor loop of the store. What could I do?  This was a big store with multiple opportunities for a four year old to get lost or abducted. Without the least bit of embarrassment or hesitation I grabbed a tangerine orange BMX bike (clearance priced $100 off) and lit out in pursuit. I continued to pursue the little suspect for the next 15 minutes never once sitting down.

In sunglasses, a bike helmet and loose fitting clothes sometimes it's hard to tell just who it is ripping down the street on a BMX bike. One thing I need to figure out is this:  Where do I find a banana seat with a sissy bar? I can get by without a slick.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The White Problem

I don't know if it's age, gender or genetics but I have no business wearing white.  It seems like all I have to do is put on a white t-shirt and wait.  I don't think I even need to move from a seated position: I can just sit there and it happens. Yesterday I went through three.

In all fairness to myself, the first one was in the line of duty.  Evan and I went out for a bike ride and he, slightly over-confident on a new bigger bike but still trailing training wheels, crashed three times which got my plain white T involved in picking up and righting the wreckage as well as using the soft fabric to mop up tears.  Line of duty.

The second one was less understandable but still, I can find the space to forgive myself. Go for a swim, hang up the wet suit, change into dry shorts and toss on a clean white T. Miniature golf, sporting goods store, pick up a new stool for the kitchen, stop in to check out a local daycare and reward ourselves with a MoJo Yogurt.  Chocolate.  I just sat there eating my frozen yogurt watching Volume II shorts from the Three Stooges Collection they had playing.  I was fully aware of the inherent danger of eating chocolate frozen yogurt while wearing a white shirt.  I was fully aware and careful in my cautious handling of that paper cup and green plastic spoon.  And yet, as we walked back to the car, my wife laughs and tells me I have chocolate all over that shirt. Laughingly.  And she was right!

As with any good story, it gets worse: Back to the pool for an evening swim then change into, what else?, a clean white T.  Bathe the boy, get him a snack and then off to bed. Before I do the same I decide to have just a couple of bites of the watermelon he'd been eating. Nice, safe, small cut-up pieces of watermelon.  I even took the precaution of standing over the sink and leaning with each bite.  Next thing I know I'm looking at a dumb-ass brushing his teeth with a single, well-placed spot of watermelon juice on his plain white t-shirt.

Has it always been this way with me?  Is it a guy thing?  I look at elderly men, shuffling along with their walkers and I study them for signs of spillage.  Am I witnessing the first signs of advancing age, the relentless march of time, the undoing of my macho self?  Is a walker with wheels and tennis balls just around the corner?

This could be genetic.  My well-performing University of Michigan daughter seems to have the same ability to soil herself.  I don't recall either of my parents having the problem.  It's times like this when I wish they were still around to ask them about such things as whether or not they had a problem when wearing white. There would be comfort in knowing.

I'd be out of white T's today if I hadn't spotted that watermelon juice at first sighting last night.  As it is, I did and have it on right now. Clean and pristine, I'm ready to make coffee. Wish me luck.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Deathcare Reform

This July our hospital begins a new phase in healthcare reimbursement.  In July we begin to get dinged, or rewarded, for "performance." Specifically, we will be financially incentivized by our ability to send home patients who are "completely satisfied." You may recognize that phrase if you've purchased a car or had one repaired at a dealership in the last few years.  It works the same for them.

The changes coming in healthcare are unbelievable.  Many of the changes which have evolved over the past 20-plus years of my career have been for the better, to be sure. And many of those proposed in the coming era of "accountable care" and "pay for performance" may also be for the better.  And I need to be clear here: the "better" I am referring to are the improvements which provide for fewer mistakes in care, healthier patients, and a better work environment for all involved.

The imposter in healthcare reform is that piece which is driven by those many corporate interests which look at healthcare as an industry with a significant capacity to generate, non-profit or otherwise, lots of money for someone. "Lean" ideologies which promote greater efficiency and cost savings in manpower and supplies are solely directed at the financial bottom line. These formulas have been demonstrated to work well in manufacturing as measured in profit. Greater efficiency, fewer "FTEs" ("employee" is too uncomfortable a term. It's easy, fun, and tres chic to "reduce FTEs" as opposed to firing people), purchasing groups, outsourcing, these moves cut costs and increase profits. In healthcare all of this is marched forward under banners which read "quality," "safety," "outcomes,"and "patient satisfaction." I guess the banner which reads "happy people" has been copyrighted by some other marketing interest.

Into this contemporary mix of modern healthcare and reform comes news of the recent death of Dr. Kevorkian, the infamous Michigan pathologist who promoted and practiced the belief that the terminally ill should have the right to die.  His passing gives me pause to wonder: In spite all of the controversy and moral outrage over the right to die movement, how long will it be before the "healthcare industry" recognizes the financial value and necessity of such an option and begins to advocate the very same philosophy? "Dignity in Death" or "Accelerated Terminal Care" or, perhaps, "Compassionate Closure." My God!  What a marketing bonanza.  But why, you ask, would healthcare reform take this direction? Because, like so much of everything else in U.S. healthcare, it's the money.  With 10,000 people a day turning age 65 it doesn't require a mathematical genius to calculate the financial burden we will be facing with care of the elderly in 20 years. People are living longer then ever before and many with greater disability requiring more care (read: "expense").  When it becomes financially unfavorable to provide decent care for the burgeoning population of elderly maybe it will give rise to a well marketed movement in healthcare to promote and offer euthanasia as a viable part of compassionate, patient centered, cost effective healthcare.  As a colleague of mine suggested, perhaps insurers will approach families of these expensive patients and offer them a deal:  Let Mom go and we'll not only provide her a comfortable end, we'll provide a cash settlement on her remaining actuarially adjusted years of care. Home run!  

So, I look forward to see how this all evolves.  As in so much of contemporary American life, I don't think it's the government we need to fear.  The death squads will be formed and staffed by those with a financial interest in your life, health, and longevity.

Historically it was the physician who looked after your health and physical well-being.  I have to believe that was Dr. Kevorkian's motive in his efforts to promote the right to death with dignity.  Next time around it will be the industry. And the industry will provide all the compassion and care financially feasible and allowed by law. And you will be completely satisfied.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Steel Wheels on Steel Rails

I had the coolest recollection today:  We all went off for a bike ride and, while riding on the path which passes our local steam railroad museum, discovered they were offering rides on the miniature railroad today.  My son Evan immediately insisted we stop for a ride, which we did….3 times.

The trains today were pulled by diesel locomotives in miniature, 1.5 inches scale to the foot.  The one operates with a battery-powered electric motor similar to a golf cart.  The other was powered by a pull-start lawnmower engine.  Both were operated by a teenage engineer with a teenage conductor riding on the rear.  I’ll admit: I was reluctant to climb aboard.  It wasn’t the age of the operators.  It was the flatcar with the wooden plank running its length which one straddles as the only seating option. I wasn’t worried so much about falling from this I-beam perched just inches above the rail.  No, I was concerned my hips or knees may not function sufficiently after our short excursion to allow me back on my bike for the ride home.

I love trains and my son knows it.  Even so, I’m not the miniature train kind of guy and, in addition to the risks mentioned above, the 7½ inch gauge railroad didn’t really seem too terribly appealing to the part of me that likes trains.  But Evan is 4.  And while he can distinguish a diesel train from a steam train, like most four year olds, he doesn’t care if it’s big or little, plastic, metal or wood.  Thomas the Tank or the real deal—if it’s a train he likes it.  And so we climbed aboard.

I’ve ridden a few trains in my life: I rode subways every day in New York for the two months I lived there with my brother Dan.  Between the ages of about 10 and 15 Dan and I got to ride the streamliner from LA to our brother Art’s house in Riverside a half-dozen times or so. I rode a train a few times up through California to my sister Nan’s house in Oregon.  I was amazed and struck with delight when, today, riding as the reluctant passenger on that miniature railroad I was immediately able to call to mind every great ride I’d ever taken on a train—especially those from Los Angeles to Riverside riding the Union Pacific’s streamliner, City of Los Angeles, up in the dome car with commanding views of the train and the railroad, rapt with the enthusiasm only a child can possess.

Thinking about it now I believe there are two things which account for my experience: First, I could feel that little train pull.  It doesn’t rock one back like an accelerating vehicle, boat or airplane.  It’s the feeling of being pulled, like you’re sitting in a desk chair and someone is tugging you along; a friendly, firm, slow, steady force. The second is the audible and very textural feel of those little steel wheels rolling on steel rails. Small as it was, the wheels of that car rumbled beneath my feet and buns as I straddled that beam. The effect of those two sensations was to utterly transport me in time.  And suddenly it was sad and glorious that it had taken me this long to remember, but I did remember; and this long to share this wonderful experience, but I was, at that very moment, sharing it with Evan.  And the really good news is this:  I think he gets it!




Wednesday, June 1, 2011

House of Wheels

My small Mid-Michigan town suffers the insults shared by so many small towns in the United States:  Failing independent businesses, Big Box buffet with Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Meijers and Staples; fast food food court with Taco Bell, MacDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's to name a few.  We have representation from all the major big box pharmacy chains. We do still have a few independent restaurants, and that's another story.  The crown jewel in our town, however, is the bike shop, The House of Wheels.

If you grew up in the 50's or 60's you surely remember independents like the local Rexall drug store, the camera shop, the hobby shop, the book store, and the bike shop. Most places, in cities of all sizes today, virtually none of these exist in any form that would recall that time in your youth when a trip to a place like the bike shop was filled with all the sights, sounds, and smells that gave comfort and the promise of fun and service. These retailers still exist in many cities all over the U.S. but most are reincarnations, and many, impostors.

Somehow, as improbable as it seems, this little town, fully pillaged by every conceivable form of retail assault, retains its bike shop.  And this, my friend, is that bike shop: Owner on the premises with his bike parked against the wall, rack upon rack of road bike, cruiser, mountain bike, kids bike, tricycle, 1-speed, 3-speed, 7-speed, or 21.  All these and trailers and carriers and helmets and shoes and skateboards.  All these and maps and brochures and stickers, sunglasses, and shorts and bright colored shirts  The whole lot crammed into 2 small show rooms either of which would be considered a big bedroom; neither of which would be considered a big living room, all of which are covered with well aged linoleum.  The walls are hung with more bikes, antique bikes, pedal cars and posters. The glass case at the register stuffed with old stuff and new: pedals and clips and gear shifters and stickers.  And more stuff on the shelves behind.

You can enter off the street through the front door, but why would you?  Why when you can enter off the alley, past the dumpster and the rack full of junkers.  Step in through the store room the size of a small milk house, full of repairs mostly ready for pick-up.  Then pass into the work shop with its two stands manned by the high-school type, the owner, and his experienced help guy-- that thirty-something who has dedicated his life to stunt-riding BMX bikes and realizes the good fortune he enjoys in this small town oasis. The uniform is a well-worn, thin with age bike tee-shirt. That's where you want to enter, the workshop, with the tubes and tires hanging from the ceiling, the shelves above lined with new and antique pedal cars some of which will remain preserved forever in their fine coat of rust; with the smell of rubber and the sight of work rags draped across the work stands.

Walk in any day and you will step out of this troubled failing economy, this troubled failing society, this troubled failing age, and you will land smack dab in the middle of somewhere you want to be, somewhere you used to be, somewhere you will long to be.  The sights, the sounds, and the smells are of another time and place, well preserved, and presented for your pleasure at the Owosso House of Wheels.