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 21st 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
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