History – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Thoughts on Comebacks

I watched the first half of the Colts vs 49ers game last night and I thought Philip Rivers didn’t look half bad for a 44-year-old guy who’s been out of the game for five years. Did you know he has 10 kids? OK, now that I’ve got that out of my system and that would be, what—the 44^th time you’ve heard that since he took the field?

So what the Colts lost? His big family was up in the stands going crazy, cheering him on.

I read an article this morning which had Steve Young saying he could make a comeback at his age—which is 64. I couldn’t believe it. The same story mentions that George Blanda played for the Oakland Raiders when he was 48 back in 1975.

It got me wondering whether I could make a comeback as a general hospital consulting psychiatrist. Could I gallop up 6-8 floors of University of Iowa Health Care? You bet your bottom dollar—I couldn’t.

It’s hard to retire. Every once in a while, I miss hiking up and down the hospital with my camp stool, deftly swinging it around and sitting with the patients and families, telling medical students and residents all kinds of lies (I mean “wise old adages and pearls of clinical wisdom”).

I get a kick out of just wondering what it would be like. I get a vision of myself with a big, golden glowing aura of greatness around my head—until I come to my senses. Hey, nobody’s going to pay me a quarter million dollars to run the consult service for the few months I’d be able to limp around the hospital, falling off my camp stool when my legs go numb or the chair breaks.

It’s not like I can just throw a football like it’s nothing after 5 years. I’d have to prove I still have enough clinical smarts to figure out how to introduce myself (Hi! I’m Philip Rivers and you need to go long!”).

The Maintenance of Certification Circus is still a thing and it’s worse. I’m not saying doctors don’t undertake the arduous task of essentially retraining to be what they once were—because that’s not good enough anymore.

Last night, the camera caught Phil more than once being just as hard on himself as he was with other members of the team who weren’t in the right spot at the right time. Most physicians are perfectionists and if you’ve been out of the game for a while and you try to squeeze back in, you could wind up mumbling to yourself, “They don’t make footballs like they used to!”

I didn’t stay up for the second half of football game. It wasn’t because of anything Philip did or didn’t do on the field.

I just can’t stay up that late nowadays.

Pearl Harbor Day Today

Today is Pearl Harbor Day and it reminds me of the time we made a trip to Hawaii in 1997 and visited the USS Arizona Memorial. There was a guy named Norm in our tour group and he and his wife Lee (Leota) made friends with me and Sena. They were in their seventies at the time. Norm wept openly when we stood inside the memorial and viewed the names of those killed in the attack. I don’t think he served in WWII. He would have been only 16 years old at the time. I think he was just very affected by the loss of so many lives. Standing in the place where so many died can make us want to cry. You could call it normal—and it is sad. We exchanged Christmas cards with Norm and Lee for years afterward until they passed.

Big Mo Pod Show: “Garage Blues”

I heard the Big Mo Blues Show last night and the Big Mo Pod Show today. I can say that the Garage Show title refers to a get together during the Covid pandemic that Big Mo threw and held in his garage and featured local Blues artists including Bryce Janey, who is number 5 on the list of songs with “Down Home Blues.”

Big Mo Pod Show 084 – “Garage Blues”

Anyway, the most interesting part of the podcast was the 3^rd song, “Coal Black Mare” (misspelled as “Cold Black Mare”) which was produced by Bob Corritore and released as part of historical album released October 17, 2025 entitled “Bob Corritore and Friends—Early Blues Sessions.” It includes songs recorded between 1984 and 2007. Corritore was on harmonica and blues artist Clarence Edwards sang the song (he died in 1993).

I looked up Clarence Edwards on Wikipedia and he was born in Louisiana in 1933 and became more widely known in the 1980s when he performed on a national blues festival circuit. I found a version of Coal Black Mare recorded in 1961 by Edwards.

The song “Coal Black Mare” has a very interesting history all by itself. Most internet articles say Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, was probably best known for writing the song “That’s All Right” in 1946 which Elvis Presley make famous later. Some say “That’s All Right” was the first rock and roll song. The Blues Hall of Fame says that Crudup was the “The Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

I found references that say Crudup wrote “Coal Black Mare” and released it in 1962 or 1965 (the Fire Sessions) depending on which web site you read. I also found a song entitled “Black Pony Blues” which on most web sites is the same as “Coal Black Mare” and was recorded in 1941 under Crudup’s name. They both sound like the same song.

Opinions differ about the meaning of the song “Coal Black Mare.” While I think most would say that it’s about a black race horse that won a lot of races, I think the “gold earrings” and “gold teeth” lyrics could make some people wonder if this is a metaphor for a woman. I found a web reference hinting at this, speculating that Charley Patton’s 1929 “Pony Blues” might have inspired the song and say that in all versions, including Crudup’s, the black mare stands for “…a black lover.”

I got lost in the internet forest on this one and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have the first idea of whether or not “Coal Black Mare” was inspired by Charley Patton’s “Pony Blues.” And while I think gold earrings and teeth would look odd on a horse; I also suspect Crudup was probably singing about a race horse.

Your thoughts?

Pennies from Heaven to Coin Rolls

We recently found out that pennies are being take out of circulation. In fact, the last day they stopped minting them was on our 48th wedding Anniversary this month, November 12, 2025! There may be a reason to save the 2025 pennies, according to some folks.

We have a piggy bank and I rolled up our saved coins last year. We had $55 worth. It feels fairly heavy now and we wondered if we had any 2025 pennies.

I wasn’t eager for the task, but there was another reason to tackle it again—we wondered if we had any pennies from 1977.

I forgot how tedious this chore was. I spent a long time peering at the pennies with a magnifying glass hunting for any minted in 2025 before I ever got busy rolling the coins into those pesky little sleeves.

I found one from 1969 which reminded me of the Men in Black 3 movie (what doesn’t remind me of MIB movies?). The scene is Agent J and Jeffrey Price on top of the Chrysler building when Agent J is about to do the time jump thing:

Jeffrey Price: Do not lose that time device or you will be stuck in 1969! It wasn’t the best time for your people. I’m just saying; it’s like a lot cooler now.

As if in confirmation, I found a few from the mid-late 20^th century and beyond as well as a few marking other important historical events:

Source: Historydotcom; A Year in History series

1959: Alaska becomes the 49^th state; Hawaii becomes the 50^th state

1960: Greensboro sit-in by 4 black college students at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, starting a nationwide civil rights movement

1964: President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act; Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize

1975: Microsoft founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen; Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win at Wimbledon tennis championship

1976: First women inducted into the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point

2001: 9/11 attack on America

I found one from 1985 when I graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1985. I found another from 1988; the year I started medical school in Iowa City. I accidentally broke the arm of our cadaver in gross anatomy. I also found one from 1996, when I graduated from the psychiatry residency program at University of Iowa. Dr. George Winokur had just stepped down from being department of psychiatry chair and he encouraged me to apply for a position at Iowa.

But the best penny find was the one from 1977, when Sena and I got married. What a coincidence that the U.S. Mint stopped making pennies on November 12, 1977—the anniversary day of our wedding.

I rolled $16.50 in coins this time, but there was plenty left over (including pennies) that wouldn’t fill the sleeves.

Penny for your thoughts?

Crib Wars: The King of Calvinball Crib!

Sena asked me the other day if I had checked back on the price of a fancy Canadian cribbage board, Cribbage Rumble. I had not, so of course since that was my assignment, I looked on the Michaud Toys website and found that the high tariff price had disappeared, apparently. There were no alarming notes in red type with multiple exclamation points. And the price was $89.95.

However, as I noted yesterday, they replaced the message that U.S. orders are subject to a 35% tariff and a 25% UPS brokerage fee paid before delivery!

That is too high.

This led to a search for more information about Cribbage Rumble, which sounds a lot like Crib Wars (or Cribbage Wars, if you prefer since I think these games are all the same animal). In fact, it didn’t surprise me very much to find a Facebook post from Michaud Toys enthusiastically advertising “Cribbage Wars” 7 months ago for the low, low price of $89.95.

That’s right; they called it Cribbage Wars just 7 months ago although they call it Cribbage Rumble nowadays. Why is that? I’m glad you asked.

I began to wonder just what exactly is Crib Wars, is that different from Cribbage Wars, and why in blazes does the sight of the game board always prompt people to exclaim that it reminds them of Snakes and Ladders or Chutes and Ladders?

There’s this convoluted and confusing story about Chutes and Ladders and Snakes and Ladders. I think it’s partly because the Crib Wars board layout sort of reminds people in my age group of the layout of Chutes and Ladders. There’s this convoluted and sometimes contradictory history of the name of Snakes and Ladders being changed to Chutes and Ladders (some writers reverse them) to make it less scary for kids.

I think the story of the origin of the game has something to do with teaching morals to children in India. Some web articles say the original game from India was called Snakes and Ladders. Some people make things even worse by calling the game “Shoots and Ladders.” In modern times, the way you played the Chutes and Ladders was to spin a dial and move up a ladder or down a chute and you were supposed to try to be the first to reach the final goal. The morality theme was abandoned and—you know where that left all of us.

Milton-Bradley changed the name from Snakes and Ladders to Chutes and Ladders in 1943 because they thought snakes scared kids.

Where was I? Oh, the Crib Wars and Cribbage Wars game are probably the same, as I said earlier. When I try to search the term http://www.cribwars.com (a suggested search term), I just get an error message. When I search for “cribbage wars” I end up at a game supply store called Ebonwood and they’re located in Appleton, Wisconsin—which is a very nice place. I interviewed for a position in a private practice psychiatry clinic there years ago.

Ebonwood sells the Crib Wars game for $210. You can find the rules on their web site. The board they sell doesn’t put much in the way of markings on it, not even numbers. A reviewer on BoardGameGeek site reviews it and shows a very nice photo of the board. All of them look pretty much like that.

I think the origin of Crib Wars is fascinating. Recall that Michaud Toys in Ontario, Canada has produced and is marketing a Cribbage Rumble board (which is really just another Crib Wars board). It turns out that the two inventors of Crib Wars are from Ontario, Canada as well. One of them is Norm Ackland, an Elvis Tribute Artist, and Robert J. Prettie. They patented the game in the late 1990s.

On the other hand, you can buy a copy of the game for about $30 at Amazon or Walmart and be cursing your luck for hours over a game which many people play only once or twice. It can take hours to play.

That pretty much makes it just another Calvinball crib game, thanks to the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd (CCC). I’m on to their tricks—and they know it.

Svengoolie Show Movie: The Valley of Gwangi!

I watched the Svengoolie show 1969 movie, “The Valley of Grungi” on Saturday. Sorry, that’s Gwangi. That was a pretty good day for TV. I saw “Men in Black” on cable, which is rare. We also saw the Iowa Hawkeye vs Oregon Ducks football game. Too bad they lost, and by only 2 points.

Anyway, “The Valley of Gwangi” was released in 1969, was directed by Jim O’Connolly, and featured the stop motion wizardry of Ray Harryhausen. It starred James Franciscus as Friar Tuck (oops, different movie), I mean Tuck Kirby, Gila Golan as T.J. Breckenridge, and Laurence Naismith as paleontologist Professor Bromley. Franciscus and Bromley both won Academy awards for “Whitest Teeth on the Planet.” Sena watched the show intermittently while flipping channels but noticed the brilliant white teeth.

But really white teeth were not the only bright spots in the film. I’ll let you know if I think of any others.

The main idea of the story is that Tuck and T.J. have this dysfunctional relationship based on Tuck’s inability to settle down and stop being a jive hustler, which happens to also be T.J.’s problem, frankly. T.J. is in this decaying wild west rodeo show which barely supports a living and Tuck is chasing a dream of a ranch in Wyoming and wants T.J. to team up with him.

But they get distracted by a paleontologist, a little horse (Eohippus) from the dinosaur age millions of years ago, and a valley containing giant lizards like an Allosaurus, a Styracosaurus, and a Pteranodon.

But they left out the dinosaur the remains of which were recently found in Montana: the dreaded dome-headed dinosaur, Brontotholus harmoni, a frequent combatant in mud-wrestling contests with Fred Flintstone.

But Bromley has his eyes set on capturing the Eohippus for scientific study (hah!), scheming to raise a corral full of Eohippi (is that the plural?), apparently to sell to people like Tuck and T.J. who have a fixation on ranches and wild west shows but can’t get along with each other long enough to run a lemonade stand.

Most of the action involves cowpokes falling off their horses while attempting to rope the dinosaurs with lariats clearly not strong enough to hold a 2-ton Allosaurus. Yet they manage to subdue it and drag it back to the wild west show arena where they make it dance to the tune Putting on the Ritz, which it apparently hated.

One of the characters in the movie is a boy named Lope, who is smart enough to stay out of some trouble than the boy Juanito in the movie “The Black Scorpion” but still manages to get nabbed by the Pteranodon, from which he has to be rescued. He is also pretty much cut from the same cloth as Tuck and TJ in that he’s a clever hustler and a matchmaker as well. Later, both Juanito and Lope team up in the combination sequel to both of these movies, “Misfit Monkeyshines and the Dome-Headed Dinosaur.” More stop action magic that you should not miss!

This movie is just a bit better than fair and I give it a 3/5 shrilling chicken rating.

Where is the Hideout of the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd?

Today we went back to playing standard 6-card cribbage and it was a relief! After all of the Calvinball cribbage variations we’ve been muddling through, getting back to a standard game felt great.

I thought of a name for an imaginary group that comes up with all of the cribbage variations (whether they exist or not): the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd (CCC). The name “Calvinball crib” came from a Reddit thread contributor who replied to someone who posted an inquiry if anyone had ever played 10 card cribbage. The answer was “Yes, there have been many many posts of Calvinball crib.”

Actually, there’s another instance of the Calvinball name applied to cribbage on Reddit. It occurred on a different topic with a lot of comments about how to teach cribbage to someone else: “Cribbage is basically Calvinball.”

If you just google the term “Calvinball cribbage” you’ll find my blog posts using it in the titles in the last week.

As a reminder, the word “Calvinball” comes from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip series which ran in the papers between 1985-1995. It’s even defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word is used mainly in North America. The definition as it relates to cribbage is that it refers to the creation of a so many different rules made by different cribbage players that it ultimately leads to a sense of chaos in that there seems to be no consistent set of rules at all.

Anyway, as we played some of the cribbage variations that include increasing numbers of playing cards, I began to wonder why there isn’t a 12-card cribbage ever listed. That’s because the so-called 11 and 13 card variants are listed on the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) website, yet there’s no mention of a 12-card variant.

What gives? Is this a ploy to confuse the public about cribbage? Is the CCC a secret splinter group of the ACC? And is the CCC attempting to subvert the effort to maintain the supremacy of the classic standard 6-card game?

Let’s hope so (I’m only kidding). But this line of thought probably led to Sena asking if the United Kingdom has a national cribbage organization like the ACC in North America. I googled it for the first time today. In 2017, the United Kingdom Cribbage Association (UKCA) was formed to address the declining popularity of cribbage in the country, which actually got started there by Sir John Suckling in the 17^th century. Recall the ACC got started in 1980.

Naturally, that prompts the question of how common is Calvinball cribbage in the UKCA? You knew I was going to say that and don’t try to deny it. It’s difficult to answer. It looks like they prefer the 6-card game to 121 also although, admittedly, I didn’t investigate it thoroughly. They seem to be more conservative. So far, I don’t see any evidence (yet) for a UK chapter of the CCC. Of course this leads to the conspiracy theory (why not?) of the UK colluding with the Canadians to create the secret CCC in an effort to undermine the popularity of standard cribbage in northwestern and northeastern U.S. (where cribbage is very popular) and instead promote a collection of Calvinball crib variations to preoccupy Americans with counting endless complicated scoring combinations that prevent the completion of any games which typically last several hours and lead to starvation, exhaustion, confusion (did you say there are 40 fifteens for two or 142?), hemorrhoids from sitting too long, and the dreaded cankles.

In case you think I’m exaggerating, try to answer this question: Why is there no information whatsoever on 12-card cribbage? Don’t include AI instructions because they are confabulated.

Big Mo Pod Show: “The Dark Side of Legacy”

This was a fascinating episode of the pod show for more than one reason. The title is interesting if only in the sense that it might a reference to B.B. King—who wasn’t on the playlist either last night or the song selection for today’s podcast. Briefly, what we learned was that B.B. King had a lot of heirs (17 was the number of dependents) to his fortune when he died and that led to conflict over his estate. This came up during the conversation about Mud Morganfield.

Big Mo Pod Show 080 – “The Dark Side of Legacy”

One song that I couldn’t find on the Big Mo Blues Show playlist was “Floating Bridge” a 1937 classic by Sleepy John Estes and I couldn’t remember hearing it last night. It’s a deeply personal story of his own near-death experience when he nearly drowned but was saved by a friend. Eric Clapton covered it in 1981.

Another thing we learned about was the double neck guitar, which came up in the conversation about the tune “Blue Guitar” by Earl Hooker. Earl Hooker was famous for playing the double neck guitar, a heavy instrument with two necks, in this case a six string and a 12 string. I found a very long and deep web article about multi-neck guitars and they appeared in the late 17^th century.

As Big Mo and Noah pointed out, there were other musicians who played double necks, among them Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”).

Big Mo mentioned the word “mambo” while talking about Mud Morganfield, who sang “Big Frame Woman.” I had to look up mambo and I think he might have meant a latin dance of Cuba? On the other hand, I found a reference that the word has African origins as well. Maybe some of you have ideas about that?

Big Mo Pod Show: “Across the Blues Universe”

I heard the Big Mo Blues Show last night and the Big Mo Pod Show today. The podcast song selection was part of the Lunch with Chuck portion of the show, which I don’t know a whole lot about. The Lunch with Chuck thing I’ve heard Big Mo talk about and I think it involves a real guy named Chuck who talks music with Big Mo sometimes, although I’ve not heard an actual live Lunch with Chuck program during the blues show. And it might be another Big Mo running joke.

Big Mo Pod Show 079 – “Across The Blues Universe”

The other thing I want to mention is that I heard Big Mo talk last night just before the Lunch with Chuck thing about something like a “fish psychic”. I think it’s a new comedy bit like MayRee’s Hand-Battered Catfish and Shorty’s Adult Diapers. I can’t remember the whole fish psychic bit, but I’m pretty sure he’ll do it again, maybe even next Friday. I think it’s another faux advertisement, and it might be about some kind of fish psychic who can help you catch lunker bass and the like.

Anyway, I learned something from the pod show today. I’d never heard of something called “race records” which is one term Lightnin Hopkins song “Mojo Hand” led to. Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to black people back in the days of the victrola, between the years of the 1920s to the 1940s, well before my time.

The other term new to me is the title of Hopkins’ song, “Mojo Hand.” The podcast discussion mentioned that mojo hand referred to African American voodoo charms, one of which happened to be a lucky charm, possibly a dried monkey’s paw. The song is actually about using voodoo to keep a lover from being unfaithful. The song means more now that I know that.

Another thing I learned today was that the song “Feel So Bad” (recorded in 1966) by Little Milton has a lyric in it, “feel like a ball game on a rainy day” that was repeated by boxer Muhammad Ali when he found out he had to wait 6 weeks before the Rumble in the Jungle match in 1974. That was because Foreman had to heal up first because he suffered a laceration above his right eye during a sparring match.

What I also didn’t know was that the Rumble in the Jungle had political overtones. There is an article entitled “Remembering the Rumble in the Jungle” subtitled “The 1974 Rumble in the Jungle was freighted with symbolism regarding American racial politics and the pan-African struggle in the context of the Cold War.”

One more thing I learned from the podcast is related to the song “Wine O’Clock” by Shemekia Copeland. He called this song a women’s support tune and, unlike my disagreement about this issue in last week’s podcast, I tend to agree with this song being about women supporting each other or at least understanding their burdens in a society marked by gender role disparity.

What helped me reach this understanding is an article entitled “What makes up wine o’clock…” published in 2022.

Wright CJC, Miller M, Kuntsche E, Kuntsche S. ‘What makes up wine o’clock? Understanding social practices involved in alcohol use among women aged 40-65 years in Australia. Int J Drug Policy. 2022 Mar;101:103560. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103560. Epub 2021 Dec 29. PMID: 34973490.

The abstract reminds me of the discomfort with the idea of women (or anyone regardless of gender) using alcohol to cope with socially designated roles.

“Think I’ll have another glass; the world can kiss my ass; tick tock, it’s Wine O’Clock.”

I sometimes learn a lot more than I expect from the Big Mo Pod Show.

What’s Up with the Van Meter Iowa Visitor?

OK, so last night I watched Don Wildman’s Van Meter Visitor (supposedly a mysterious Van Meter, Iowa cryptid) episode first seen over 100 years) from his show Beyond the Unknown. The season 3 episode first aired in October 9, 2021, and I’d never seen it before.

Wildman said that somebody investigated the history of this creature who was spotted in 1903 in Van Meter, Iowa and concluded that the 8-foot-tall monster with a huge shining beak was actually a great hornbill—a pretty big bird but hardly 8 foot tall (more like 3-4 foot).

Supposedly, according to some experts, this big bird escaped from an exotic pet enthusiast. It’s never seen in America and is native to India or Southeast Asia.

I can’t find anything on line that says anything about this explanation. By most accounts, the Van Meter Visitor is a cryptid that is unexplained to this day. I think there’s still an annual festival for it in Van Meter.

The cast of Expedition X (season 4, episode 2) also did a TV episode about the Van Meter Visitor on September 9, 2021. I might have seen it, but I don’t remember the conclusion. I’m pretty sure the team didn’t think it was just a big bird. I don’t know why the Expedition X episode appeared about the same time as the Beyond the Unknown episode. Maybe Don Wildman and Josh Gates joked about the Van Meter monster over lunch one day and decided they’d both do a show about it.

Hey, I’m open to the great hornbill explanation, but so far, I can’t find any links to web articles that agree with it. Heck, even AI says “There is no connection between the great hornbill and the Van Meter Visitor.” I didn’t ask AI; it just pipes up because I can’t block it.

If any readers know about the great hornbill explanation for the Van Meter Visitor, drop a comment!