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Reflection on James Alan McPherson’s “A Solo Song: For Doc”
I’ve been reading the short story collection Hue and Cry by James Alan McPherson with the idea that the entire book was new to me. So, I was stunned when I remembered the story, “A Solo Song: For Doc.” It has more than one layer of meaning, but on one level it’s about a Black…
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Reflecting on Ironies
Over the Easter weekend, we drove by James Alan McPherson Park. A lot of people were having a great time. Because it was crowded, we went to Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, planning to return another day. We just got our copy of McPherson’s Pulitzer Prize winning fiction anthology, Elbow Room. We’ve ordered his other collection…
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Bird Poop Luck and Boston Duck Tours
Last night Sena and I watched a YouTube video walking tour of Boston, Massachusetts. It brought back memories of a trip we made there about 16 years ago. The main reason for the journey was a November teaching conference (sponsored by the Academy of C-L Psychiatry, back then called the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine) on…
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Hanging In There
It has been a while since my last post. I’m hanging in there although sometimes it’s difficult to stay optimistic. I’m reminded of the Survivor Tree, the Callery Pear in New York City. You can easily google the story about this tree which somehow survived at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attack on America in…
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Homesickness After Retirement
It has been only about 3 weeks since I retired and—I am not living the dream yet. I’ve always been a worrywart and I find that I’m worrying about a lot of things: money, things to do, the future. If you just heard me say that I’m loving retirement, then you’d probably guess I’m not…
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New Mailbox
Well, it has been almost two weeks since my last day of work. That was called my “termination date,” which strikes me as an ominous term. We now have a new mailbox because we moved in June. The mailbox is a sign of moving away from the old way of life and moving toward a…
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The Firefighter Retires
I’m writing this post today because this firefighter retires tomorrow—and I’ll probably be very busy and too weary at the end of my last day on the psychiatry consult service to write. In fact, I’ve been too busy and tired to post for the last several weeks because we’ve been in the process of moving.…
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Please Take Your Seat
I brought my camp stool home from my office at the hospital yesterday. For the past several years and up until the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, I used it while interviewing hospitalized patients as part of my job as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist in the general hospital. I stopped only when I wondered whether carrying…
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The Robins are Back
The robins are building their Hurrah’s nests in our back yard again. That’s about the only thing that has not changed. The COVID-19 (C-19) pandemic has changed just about everything else in our lives. I wear a face shield now at the hospital. We’re told to wear it as much as possible, like putting on…
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First Day Back in the Saddle
Today was my first day back on the hospital consultation-liaison service and I’m a little tired. I put about 2 miles and 22 floors on my step counter, which was a nice pace for starters. It’ll get busier as the COVID-19 surge develops over the next couple of weeks. Being in phased retirement means I’m…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 