#57 lips, deaths, winter

Good morning.

            I had a brief email exchange with our representative in the Minnesota House (who I know and support), in which I expressed the hope that perhaps some Republicans in the Minnesota Senate could be persuaded to vote for items important to the Democrats.  He responded with a phrase I'd never heard before and had to look up:  "I believe the saying is 'from your lips to God's ears."  Huh.  Elliott had heard it.  (In case you are also ignorant of the phrase, according to UsingEnglish.com, "When you say this to someone, it means that you hope what they are saying will come true.")

* * *

            A family tale I've told a few friends.  My great-grandparents Nels and Inger Kjestine (Jensen) Larsen had 14 children who lived to adulthood, many of them into their 80s and 90s.  Those 14 children had 29 children of their own, of whom 27 lived to adulthood; one died within a month of birth—as did the mother—and one died at age 11.  My grandmother was one of the 14 children and my mother was one of those 27 siblings/cousins.

            Another one of those 27 was Mae, one of my mother's 26 cousins.  Mae died in the hospital in the middle of the night on January 21, at age 94.  This is not a terribly sad story; she had suffered a heart attack the week before, her kidneys were failing, her blood pressure kept dropping very low, she had terrible edemas, and the last couple of days she was mostly unconscious.  She awoke long enough to recognize my sister-in-law, who was visiting, and the physician—she was lucid (my sister-in-law told me), she reaffirmed her DNR/DNI instructions, and she refused any invasive treatments.  She was ready to go (and had told me that in a phone conversation a few days before she went into the hospital).  She had always lived an active life, "I did it my way," and had had a good time.  She traveled more places, more times, for more time, than all the people reading this missive put together.  Well, maybe that's slight hyperbole—but not much.  She was also in Who's Who of American Women because she was the first female bank vice president in the country (or so the book says).

            Mae was the last of the 27, so the last of an entire generation.  The first of the 27 was born in 1904; the last died in 2019.

            I have no idea how many total children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren the 27 had.  Mae had none.  My mother had three children and a number of grandchildren.  I know a few of the other families, but I'm sure that by now there are at least a couple of hundred descendants from the 27.  My mother alone has about 20.

            Pat caught an interesting factoid:  Mae Lillian Kushlan died on MLK day.  Elliott pointed out that it was 1/365 chances that would occur.  I noted that it would be difficult to calculate the odds that it is MLK day—rather than, say, RTH or SOM or BRD day.  Dr. King had to have the same initials as Mae for that to work.

            I'm coming to feel like national holidays are my Dia de Muertos.  (I know that Dia de Muertos is not a sad celebration, but I'm co-opting the name.)  On New Year's Day I found myself sorting through more of Krystin's belongings.  On MLK Day I was sorting through Mae's belongings and beginning (with my brother and sister-in-law and Kathy and Elliott) to clean out her house.  I can't wait for Memorial Day. . . .

* * *

            While I'm on the subject of mortality, I wrote a few years ago about the belief that death comes in threes.  Both the research sources I examined as well as my colleagues and friends agreed that the claim is a myth.

            My friend (and former University of Minnesota president) Nils Hasselmo died on January 23.  Kathy and I had dinner with him and attended a play with him two years ago when we were visiting Tucson, AZ (where he and his wife lived part of the year).  I worked *with* Nils from 1973 to 1975 (when he was Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and I worked for the Dean, which is when I met Nils), I worked *for* Nils from 1980 to 1983 when he was Vice President for Administration and Planning, and I worked again *with* him when he was President from 1988 to 1997.  We had remained in touch ever since he left the presidency, often exchanging humorous email messages.  He was one of the most decent and thoughtful people I ever had the privilege to know and to work with and for.

            But the deaths can stop.  Now.  I don't need three.

* * *

            Our house was built in 1931.  Pat and I remodeled and expanded it extensively in 1996-97.  The new part of the house is well insulated; the original part has tar paper for insulation (except around the new windows installed throughout the house).  The kitchen is in the original part of the house.  When the temperatures are as low as they are right now in the Twin Cities, our kitchen cabinets on the exterior walls become additional refrigeration space.   (The high today is 4° and the highs next Tuesday and Wednesday are -6 and -10, respectively, with wind chills much lower.)  Food gets cold quickly when placed on plates that are 30°.

* * *

            On that same general topic, there was a fun short article in the Atlantic titled "Why So Many People Hate Winter."  The author, a woman born in Russia who lived in St. Petersburg until she was 3 years old, after which she grew up in Texas and then moved to Washington, D.C.  She hates winter and cold (although, from my point of view, Washington doesn't exactly suffer from much of "winter"; she complains that "there's usually a day in mid-January when I grouse that the weather forecast is, yet again, '38 and raining,''' which is t-shirt weather in Minnesota in the winter).

            After contemplating the effects of years of Texas heat, Ms. Khazan reports that "research suggests that there are two kinds of people who tolerate the cold very well: indigenous Arctic groups, and men. And the more people are exposed to cold temperatures, the better they acclimate."  It seems that people who have lived for a long time in northern climates "have evolved to be slightly more stout and to have shorter limbs, so they have less surface area, compared with their body mass, from which to lose heat. . . .  Other studies suggest that polar peoples also tend to have more 'brown fat,' which generates heat."  It's also the case, she tells us, that those who reside in cold areas have a higher basal metabolic rate [BMR], which is the measure of how much heat your body generates.  If it's cold, you generate more heat.  You also require more calories in order to generate that heat.  One drawback to being descended from people who've lived in cold climates for centuries is the increased "uptake of thyroid hormones," which causes thyroid problems among the elderly.  On advantage is that you're less likely to be overweight and have better heart health.

            The great office dilemma is also explained.  "BMR also helps explain why men—of all nationalities—tend to be better at tolerating the cold than women are. Women are often too cold at work because office-building temperatures are set to the men's higher metabolic rates, according to a 2015 study on 'female thermal demand' . . .  Men, the study found, might be comfortable at temperatures as much as 5 degrees lower than women are."  Of course, if you work in an old university building, as I did for most of my career, the temperature you want is unrelated to the temperature that the heating system provides.

            Ms. Khazan related a conversation she had with a "professor in thermoregulatory physiology" who's in Sydney now but who was in Ottawa, Canada for a time.

Jay told me that people can psychologically adapt to the temperature outside if they are exposed to it for about 10 days or more. That's why those last few 40-degree March days feel so much warmer than the first 40-degree day of November. He and others have found that people who are exposed to the cold more often tend to shiver less and feel less cold, which suggests that their bodies got better at keeping them warm from the inside.  "As you become more acclimated to the cold, your body becomes more effective at delivering warm blood to the extremities, your core temperature goes up, and all that contributes to being more resistant to the cold."

She concludes sadly "that means the only cure for hating winter, unfortunately, is just more winter."

            Obviously I'm a man, so I suppose I tolerate lower temperatures then women, on average.  I suspect that difference is mitigated by age; aren't many older people more intolerant of cold (and keep their homes warmer than they did when younger?)?  But maybe older men still tolerate cooler temps than older women.  I'm also of north European descent, but not from any indigenous Arctic population, so I'd guess that I and those of similar background have a greater tolerance for cold than those from tropical or warmer climates—but not as much as the Arctic folks. 

            In any case, Kathy and I plan to vacate the Midwest for 2-3 months once she retires, higher BMR or not.

            If you live near me, stay warm.  If you don't, I hope your BMR is low enough.

--Gary

#56 surgery, old letters, old job, traffic, football, painting, more funny words

Good afternoon.

            What fun to start the New Year with surgery (not major).  I have the pleasure of being afflicted with Dupuytren's contracture, a buildup of a band of tissue in the hand that causes the pinkie (and for some, ring) finger to curl in toward the palm.  Mine is not severe, but annoying (like for using a keyboard), and would get worse if left untreated.

            The surgery is a zig-zag cut from the middle of the pinkie finger down into the outer edge of the palm:  /\/\/  The surgeon pulls back the flaps of skim and carefully cuts out the tissue build up, which gets wrapped around the nerves and tendons that run to the end of the pinkie.  Kathy blanched when I was describing how the surgeon, before she stitched me up, aimed a camera at the surgery site and used surgical instruments to show me on a large color TV screen what she'd done, including pulling back the skin flaps and lifting (very slightly) the nerves and tendons with one of her instruments when I asked what those cords were.  I'm not squeamish about blood (there was very little), so I thought this demonstration was quite interesting, even if I was looking at my own palm and finger cut wide open.  (I was screened from the site during and after the surgery, so didn't see it directly or as the surgery was happening.)

            Needless to say, I felt nothing while this live telecast was occurring.  Before surgery I was given a nerve block for the entire arm.  I now have some idea what amputees must feel:  I felt like my arm was resting against my side as I was lying on the surgery bed and they were preparing to start.  I asked when they would begin; the surgeon said the surgery was already under way.  Since I was tented, I could not see what they were doing and had no idea my arm had been moved and my palm cut.  So when I was shown what had been done, it was a disembodied hand and finger on which she was manipulating skin flaps.  Like watching a science program on TV.

            Afterward, my arm was a dead weight (that they put in a sling).  My nerves somewhere wanted to move my fingers (the ones sticking out of the cast put on two fingers after surgery to hold the pinkie straight and protected) but there was no response.  It was a weird feeling.  I had an extremity but not really, not until the nerve block wore off, several hours later.

            This missive comes later than I had planned because part of my hand was in a cast for a week.  Using a keyboard was painfully (figuratively) slow.

* * *

            Related to the foregoing only temporally, I had an epiphany.  While dozing slightly in the pre-op room for maybe 30-45 minutes, after they put in the IV for the antibiotic and I had taken the sedative, I realized I had another project.  I have been moving around, for nearly 30 years, a box about twice the size of a shoe box that contained letters my great uncle Orvil Pease had written from 1917-1919 to his mother and brother from Camp Cody, in Deming, NM (boot camp) and from the front in France and Germany when he was a private in the American Expeditionary Force in WWI.  At one point I was going to send the letters to the Minnesota Historical Society, but I never got around to it, so kept sticking the box one place then another.

            The letters were almost all in their original envelopes; the ones from Europe were marked approved by the Army censor.  To his mother they were addressed Mrs. W. H. Pease, Belview, Minnesota, which is where my great uncle grew up (in the southwest part of Minnesota, about 130 miles from Minneapolis and 18 miles northwest of Redwood Falls, population  I began taking them out of the envelopes and scanning them to see if they were worth preserving.  The first one I read, one of the shortest at one page, read in part:

Two guys from Iowa & Nebraska were courtmarshaled [sic] the other day at 5 P. and were shot at sunrise the next day.  They killed another fellow playing Poker and shooting Crap.

I thought to myself, "well, these could be interesting!"  I have only begun to transcribe them, but I can see even now that they present a marvelous story.  My uncle was a reasonably smart guy and the letters are literate.  Moreover, he wrote every 4-5 days!  There are at least 100 letters, each 4-5-6 pages long.

* * *

            Finally, on the topic of the letters:  I've connected with a relative (in law) that I don't believe I had ever met.  My great-uncle Orvil and my great-aunt Inez (she's the blood relative) never had kids, so my mom and then I received their attention.  All the time I would visit Inez and Orv while growing up, they had a picture of a young woman in a nurse's cap on one of the shelves in their living room; it was Orv's niece, Mary Ann Pease (the daughter of his older brother Harold & wife Ella Mae). 

A few years ago (2005) I just about dropped the paper when I read an obituary for Ella Mae Pease; I had no idea she had still been alive.  I went back to that obituary and found Mary Ann's married name and sent her a note (in Minnetonka, MN).  I wanted to talk to her to learn if she could tell me anything about Orv's life before going into the Army, growing up in Belview.  I thought maybe she'd heard some stories from her dad.  Mary Ann called me immediately after receiving my note and was thrilled to learn about the letters and that I was transcribing them.  She said she did have some information and volunteered to help me with her uncle's letters.  So she's going to come over to my house, which she last visited as a youngster when her aunt Inez and uncle Orv lived here.

* * *

            I jokingly debate with myself whether I should, at least for a couple of months, become one of the geezers at our local Lunds grocery store who are carryouts.  Doing so would provide the bookends for my working life:  my first job was as a carryout at a local grocery store, part of a chain that has long since disappeared (Penny's, in the Hub, for those who might remember).  I think I probably won't; I'm more amused by the symmetry than any real desire to have the job again, no matter for how short a period of time.  Unless maybe it were for one day.

* * *

            Big bridges (and bridges in general) interest me.  I recently wrote to a friend at the U of Edinburgh to ask about the enormous new bridge across the Firth of Forth (it connects Edinburgh on the south with areas to the north, so people don't have to go all the way inland around the Firth).  It turns out that the only traffic on the old bridge that it replaced is limited to buses and bikes and pedestrians (maybe a bit more—I'm not sure).  In any case, all the regular traffic has been diverted to the new bridge.  Even with the new bridge, there remains traffic congestion.

            My friend wrote back that

there is an interesting theory about road speeds for commuters that I came across a few years ago.  This is that commuting by car will always take the same length of time as using public transport.  The argument is that if public transport is faster, then motorists will transfer to trains/buses, reducing the amount of traffic on the roads and hence speeding up the average car journey time.  Numbers equilibrate when there is no further advantage to be gained by changing modes.  Traffic speeds in London tend to support this theory.

            I wrote to a colleague in our Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where they study such things as transportation, asking about the equilibrium hypothesis.  He told me that he "had not heard the assertion you mention phrased that way, but it did remind me of works that have stated people do appear to have a 'time budget' rather than a distance one."  That is, they decide they want to be within 10 or 20 or 30 minutes of work (whether by car, public transit, bike) and then choose a location that matches whatever their other preferences are.

            The best-laid plans go awry, however, when one changes jobs and the location of the new one is nowhere near that of the old one.  Suddenly there is a long commute.  I've seen that happen.

* * *

The future of football surely must be in doubt.  We have all seen reports about the effects of concussions (whether in football or for any other reason); now there's a study that provides even more damning results.

Folks at two organizations I've never heard of (no surprise there) have found that the effects of concussions are more long-lasting than previously known.  They discovered that the biomarkers for CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) were already elevated in college football players—before they even started playing.  The lead author commented that "this suggests that the effects of past head injuries are persisting over time."  Moreover, through both cognitive tests and measures of biomarkers, they learned that players who'd never been diagnosed with a concussion "likely experienced head injuries that were not severe enough to be clinically diagnosed, but still caused damage. These injuries are also known as subconcussive injuries."  What they are apparently uncertain about is whether the biomarkers can provide a "quantity of injury, rather than just saying whether this a concussion or not."

I continue to be amazed that anyone plays football anymore.  Or plays in any contact sport.  Why don't they just sign up for dementia at age 40?

* * *

            I read a quote attributed to Edgar Degas in one of my daily news updates:  "Painting is easy when you don't know how, difficult when you do."  I asked Elliott if thought Degas was right.  He did.  "I agree with the quote. If only because when you don't know what you're doing you don't notice or care about mistakes. Or since there is no such thing as a 'correct' painting, you can only fail if you truly have a vision. Ignorance is bliss."

* * *

            More on "funny" words.

            A colleague from my time at the University of Edinburgh reminded me of a conversation we had when I was on sabbatical there in 2006.  "Thought you might have included our conversation about differences between US/Scottish uses of 'fanny' – the American usage would have landed you in trouble in polite company in Scotland as I told you at the time!"  I had completely forgotten about the exchange.  He told me again.  "You commented one day about sitting on your one.  I told you that in British English the word is only used about females, and is a polite version of the C word."

            He went on to point out, much to my surprise, that the C word can be used in Scotland. "While it's taboo in most circumstances, in some communities it is used as a rude euphemism for 'person' without causing any offence.  This caused some amusement a couple of Saturdays ago when on a live cooking (yes, cooking) phone in on BBC TV someone with a Scots accent used this.  However, the accent was so broad that it passed unnoticed by the presenters, and probably was only picked up by people in Scotland!"  He passed along the link to the Urban Dictionary.

Cunt (Scottish Definition)

Used widely in the Scottish dialect to replace the word "person", not necessarily always used in a derogatory manner. Also replaces words which end in "one", referring to another person.

Use of word Cunt (Scottish Definition):

Where's my lighter? Some cunt's got it!

Are you coming out tonight? Everycunt is going.

How many cunts liked your Facebook status?

Does anycunt know the time?

He's an alright cunt him.

            I won't be trying this Scottish use of the word any time soon.

            My friend also noted that a few years back, The Scotsman (the national newspaper of Scotland that clearly hasn't caught up with non-sexist language in the 21^st century) reported the results of a survey of Scots about their favorite word.

OF all the words in the Scots language, it is perhaps appropriate that 'dreich' should, ahem, reign over them all. . . .  [A] new poll has revealed that the word, which usually refers to wet, cold or gloomy weather, has been voted as the nation's favourite with 23 per cent of the public vote.

I told him that dreich is what we had in Minneapolis at the time we were exchanging messages.

            While I'm on the topic of words and phrases:  Most of you have probably read the bit in the news about Michelle Obama saying "bye Felicia" at the Trump inauguration.  I had never heard the phrase, but when I looked it up, I understand why.  Dictionary . com explains.

Bye Felicia is a dismissive term which can be used in a number of different contexts. Most simply and frequently, it is used as a cold way to bid someone farewell.

"Bye, Felisha" is a line spoken by Ice Cube's character, Craig, in the 1995 cult, stoner, comedy film Friday. While smoking a joint with his friend Smokey, he is approached by Felisha, a local girl who constantly annoys the neighborhood with her begging and attempts to mooch off others. After her request to borrow Smokey's car is met with total refusal, she turns to Craig for support, and, rather than offer to help or defend her, he looks away and simply says "Bye, Felisha" in a dismissive tone.

The term bye Felicia has been popular in Black culture since the 1990s when the film was released, although the spelling of the name has changed to the more common (and, some would point out, more "white") spelling: Felicia. It reemerged in pop culture and became a more mainstream phrase when the reality TV show RuPaul's Drag Race started using it regularly around 2009.

            Dreich I will use.  The others not.

            Have an enjoyable Sunday.

Gary