In The Cigar Box

I realize it has been a long hiatus since the last post but in keeping with tradition, here is our 2017 Christmas Card.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone who stops by here! The raucous Red Dog Saloon in Juneau, a touristy testament to miners and prospectors,  offered a warm respite from a cold cutting mist and food for our band of city slickers who'd spent a day amid real sled dogs towing momentary mushers. But Alaska's gold rush frontier is a withering footprint -  a transient mark on a place much greater than its geography. Midmorning next we saw clouds being birthed on the bay and rising inch upon inch unmasking mountains and glaciers riddled by blue ice formed long before any human would leave a footprint anywhere. All engines stopped.  The big ship drifted. Its wake dissipated and the bay rebalanced. Slow rolling ripples hit the hull sounding like polite pats on a toddler's tush urging us to move along. ...

There is no intuition or preconceived notion that can survive five minutes of open conversation.  The room filled quickly.  Patients and drivers.  Patients’ heads hung slightly having survived the indignity of prepping and preparing for one type of scope or another to penetrate their intensely private places.  I was a driver.  We drivers acted like golf caddies.  We gave unwanted counsel laced with banal encouragement.  We carried the stuff – bags of personal items and clothes  our patient had exchanged for those sought-after gowns with the open back and a single tie at the neck. Drivers are there to serve but not much actual work is required.  So the bulk of our time was given to averting our eyes while we judged the others filling the waiting room.  Using clandestine glances and surreptitious eavesdropping, I built a mental story about the folks in the room – stories, like most judgments, that were devoid of doubt.  I’m r...

I didn’t want to add to the noise.   There was so much of it.   Wall to wall.   Twenty-four seven.   Facebook, Twitter, cable “news”, “false news”, TV, newspapers, blogs and who knows where else.   The noise was deafening and nauseating.   And when I started this blog, I promised not to turn it into a political rant page.   In the last five hundred days, it has been difficult to clear my mind because of the onslaught of noise.   This campaign made posting stories in my usual style seem trivial.   The election hasn’t quelled the racket. The election is over.   No candidate got most of the votes.   Donald Trump has become our President-elect.   In the hope that my grandsons will someday read these blog posts, I have to say something about such a contentious political event.   If you can’t stand the additional noise, stop here.   I understand. When I started to write this blog post, it was Tuesday, exactly a wee...