Category: reflections

Move Up to the Power Pole Saw

One of our favorite movies is “Up,” a charmer about an old guy named Carl whose wife Ellie always urged him to move up and onward to new adventures. In some ways, me and Sena are like Carl and Ellie. There’s a lot more to that movie than a house which travels under balloon power to South America, carrying Carl, a boy named Russell, and the spirit of Ellie.

Like Carl, I tend to be reluctant to try new things—like chain saws, for example. Ever since the derecho over a month ago, a chain saw would have come in a lot handier than a handsaw, a bow saw, and a manual pole saw. Sena tried to coax me to get a chain saw for a derecho disaster in our backyard, which left an eyesore of a mess. The tangle of stout oak branches with a dense mass of dead leaves never hit the house and was not a hazard—unless you bushwhacked into the woods and stood underneath it with a non-power pole saw and jiggled it with that.

Even with the pole fully extended, I could barely touch the 7 or 8-inch-thick branches. I could tickle it, but I knew I would never bring it down. Sena thought otherwise.

And then one day, Sena came home with a gift for me—the power pole saw. It’s a battery powered chain saw on a pole extendable to about 15 feet. The picture shows it without the battery. There are many words to describe my immediate reaction. Gratitude is not one of them. I have never owned nor used any kind of chain saw. I was not eager to learn and was not convinced that it would help me bring the oak tangle down.

My first efforts using the power pole saw reminded me more of Russell trying to pitch his first tent than Carl succeeding in getting his house in the air with balloons. The battery took only a little over an hour to fully charge, dashing my hopes of returning a defective product without injury to my ego.

I figured out how to attach and tighten the pole extensions. It was heavier than I thought it would be. Amazingly, no lubricant oil was provided. I had to make an extra trip to get that and a pair of safety glasses (which had to fit over my prescription pair). Oiling the bar and the chain is a bit tedious using the thumb-sized plastic bottle provided—which I had to fill from a large bottle of motor oil I had to go out and buy.

Finally, I could stall no longer. I crept into the very cramped space in the thicket, the kind of place in which experts tell you not to use the power pole saw. It was also necessary to stand right under the branch I needed to cut—another no-no.

At least I had my safety glasses on when I finally turned on the saw and got a face full of sawdust and wood chips that somehow got into my eyes anyway. One thing I was very thankful for was the two-step trigger mechanism. I had to first press one safety switch backward with my thumb while pressing the power trigger with my forefinger. Only then could I lift my thumb off the safety switch and continue to cut—as long as I kept my finger on the trigger. If I lifted my finger off the trigger, the motor would immediately stop. That didn’t bother me a bit.

I was just starting to gain a little confidence with the tool when I got it jammed into one of the thickest branches over my head. I couldn’t jiggle or pry it loose. It hung there, apparently wedged between the two sections of the limb and by one of those pesky strips of bark. I could hear faint snaps and pops that worried me more than a little bit.

I hurried out of there and looked back. The saw hung in mid-air in the wedge. I could hear more distinctly now a crackling noise and could see smaller branches slipping down through the foliage distal from the big branch. Gravity was playing a role here.

I grabbed the manual pole saw, extended to its full length and quickly scraped at that stupid strip of bark, holding my breath. The popping noises suddenly got a little louder and I rushed for the opening in the thicket, but got hung up by the manual pole saw which got stuck on some smaller trees. I yanked like a maniac a couple of times before realizing that I had to move back a few steps towards the thicket to unhook my saw from the brush before moving forward. I guess life is like that sometimes.

I got out—but the tree limb just wouldn’t drop. I used the molded hook on the manual pole saw and wrestled with outer branches in an effort to pull the thing down. It finally fell, releasing my power pole saw, which fell to the ground. By some miracle, neither the saw nor I was harmed. In its path to the ground, the branch passed the spot where I had been standing.

I wish I could tell you I reformed right then and there, stopped my foolhardy, reckless, death-defying acrobatics and levitated to the Himalayas, there to meditate for the rest of my life.

But I didn’t. I went back in there, retrieved my power pole saw and—got the thing wedged again in a different branch. This time, I could free the blade but had to take the chain off, brush the wood chips out, and put the tool back together. This involved repeatedly turning the chain over and over, trying to understand how this was supposed to be refitted on the bar to match the image stamped on the bar. This took a while. I dropped the bar a couple of times, but it didn’t break—dang.

Now you would naturally suppose that by this time, I saw the error of my ways, sought counsel from aliens who took me in their spaceship through the nearest wormhole back to their home planet in a distant galaxy where they reengineered my genetic code and built me a new brain thereby setting me free from the ancient human pattern of refusing to learn from mistakes.

But no, that didn’t happen. I just kept cutting. Against all odds, I cleared most of the derecho debris. It just goes to show you; sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart.

It also helps to have a persistently encouraging wife who says, just like Ellie, “Adventure is out there!” Sena gets all the credit.

Shout Out for Big Act of Kindness

Today Sena and I want to make a shout out for a big act of kindness. Back in August, the derecho blew down a maple tree in our front yard, which also led to a concern about the tree right next to our house, which was a lilac.

We cut both down to stumps with a handsaw, a long handle tree trimmer, and a bow saw. We don’t have a chain saw. We planned to hire a handyman who does own a chainsaw to cut down the stumps.

We were outside, laboring over the lilac with the bow saw. We shared the bow saw. Come to think of it, I’m pretty good about sharing a bow saw, especially when I’ve been using it enough to notice muscle pain in several places I didn’t know I had.

We got the stump down to about 2 feet and were cutting off pathetic little chunks not much bigger than golf balls.

And then I guess a couple of guys on the construction crew working nearby took pity on us because suddenly, they walked over, shouting “Let us help you!” and carrying the biggest concrete saw I’ve ever seen, along with a respectable sledge hammer. The guy operating the concrete saw was the size of a sumo wrestler. His partner was no slouch.

No kidding, “Let us help you!” How could we refuse? What made them do that? Was it the white hair? Was it because they might have seen me yesterday get dirty as a pig cutting tiny pieces off the front yard maple stump? The only way to trim a stump once it gets to a certain height is to roll all over the ground. I have not been that dirty since I was 8 years old after playing king of the hill on a very tall dirt pile.

When I think about the use of a concrete saw almost as tall as I am to cut down a lilac stump, I’m astonished. They brought the tools they had to help us. I’ll never forget that big, friendly “Let us help you!” I’ll never forget their smiling faces.

That lilac stump lasted long a little longer than you’d think, and it was very heavy work. The saw screamed and smoked like it was on fire. It was heavy, but he was heavier and strove to slice the stump as close to the ground as possible. They both took turns swinging the sledge hammer at it—which made me instinctively want to duck. The stump finally let loose.

Immediately, the workers hurried away as we shouted thanks, almost as if they were worried that we might want to pay them—which I certainly considered. They smiled broadly, waving their huge hands.

We are still overwhelmed with gratitude for their kindness. These days, kindness is hard to come by. You look at the news (bad idea), and all you read is somebody is slamming or killing somebody else. I’m not saying you never see or hear about little or big acts of kindness—just that the bad news tends to overshadow the good.

You have to look very hard for an act of kindness. It’s harder to see how we can pay it forward. It doesn’t have to be a big act of kindness. It can be little, like saying “Good morning, how are you?” Even saying “thank you” is an act of kindness. And it’s OK to give a big shout out for any kindness you see—just to let people know it’s still out there.

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 consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry I enrolled in, presented by the Mass General Hospital C-L psychiatry division. Funny, I don’t recall much about the details of the conference itself. Maybe that was because I got distracted by a bird pooping on me early on the first day.

I was on a break between programs and sitting outside the Boston Marriott at Copley Place. Suddenly I saw something white and gooey plummet inside the left cuff of my pants. It turned out to be bird poop, which led to my frantically racing back into the building to clean up.

I don’t know what kind of bird dropped that load of poop on me. It was probably a sparrow—but it could have been a seagull or even a duck, which reminds me of the highlight I can manage to remember about the trip, which was the Boston Duck Tour. I guess that means that the old story about a bird pooping on you bringing good luck might be true.

Anyway, while we didn’t have a chance to walk the Freedom Trail, we got tickets for the Duck Tour on a very chilly day. Remember, it was November. Because the annual meetings of the Academy of C-L Psychiatry were held in November, they were usually in warmer parts of the country. The Boston location was a real outlier.

We were lucky (because of the bird poop, no doubt) to find the Boston Duck Tours station at the Prudential Center on Boylston Street, practically right across the street from our hotel.

We were pretty impressed by the versatility of the Duck Tour bus, which converts readily into a boat because it’s a replica World War II amphibious DUKW vehicle.

It was a fantastic sightseeing tour. I remember the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge and only now do I compare it to the Longfellow Bridge (also known as the Salt & Pepper Bridge). The Zakim cost a $100 million or so new, but the repair of the much older Longfellow Bridge cost over $300 million. I’m not knocking old stuff; just sayin’.

Leonard Zakim was a famous civil rights leader whose courage and respect for the dignity and rights of others seemed to get stronger after his bout with bone marrow cancer, the pain and depression from which he dealt with by using both medical and complementary therapies.

Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge left and Longfellow Bridge right

The Zakim Bridge was a part of the “Big Dig” which was a major $22 billion reroute of the main highway running through Boston and which was basically done by the time of our visit in 2004. It cost a lot of money and there has been some controversy about it.

Big Dig

There was also some controversy about whether the Duck Tours driver let Sena drive the vehicle while we were either crossing the Charles River or the Boston Harbor, I can’t recall which. He asked for volunteers to pilot the craft, but there were no immediate takers. He asked again and Sena spoke right up and took the driver’s seat. She’s modest about whether she actually drove the Duck.

Massachusetts State House left and Boston Harbor (I think) right

Then again, maybe that bird poop luck kept us on course.

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 2001. We visited New York in the summer of 2017 and saw the Survivor Tree at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum plaza. It’s hard to believe that was 19 years ago. And now we’re dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

I’m still adjusting to my new identity as a retired person. I was reminded of that when I read the recent post “What is your Identity?” on 9/12/2020 by The Good Enough Psychiatrist. She’s resilient and optimistic, traits I admire. I tend to be rigid and pessimistic, especially when I have a lot of time on my hands.

I also need to get out of my head. It’s amazing how easily reminiscence can morph into rumination. Galloping all over the hospital as a psychiatric consultant distracted me from that habit. On the other hand, Sena and I reminisced the other night for quite a while. I was astonished at how much we both recalled about our 42-year long marriage and the adventures and challenges we’ve been through.

Our first house was a challenge. Shortly after we moved in, I had to try to mow the tall grass which had been neglected for a long time. I had to use either a scythe or a weed whacker. I honestly can’t recall exactly what I used but the scythe sounds more impressive, so I suspect it has crept into the story more for dramatic effect. It was a very hot day and my first encounter with my neighbor from across the street was his generous act of lending me his power lawnmower. He was a white man and, back in those days, kindness in that context was uncommon.

The only time I used a power mower other than at that house was when I went to Huston-Tillotson College in Austin, Texas. It’s now called H-T University. It was one of the historically black colleges in the country and I recall feeling a bit awkward there since I had grown up in largely white neighborhoods in the Midwest. Anyway, I helped mow the campus grounds. I guess “helped” might not be the right word, especially if you consider the perspective of the groundskeeper who was in charge of fixing the power lawnmowers I destroyed. I wrecked a few mainly because I kept running over rough, rocky ground. After I dragged the 2nd or 3rd ruined mower back to him, he stared at me and shook with rage. Mercifully, memory fails me at this point.

I’m realizing I could probably go on rambling like this for a good while. I guess that might mean I’m gradually adopting the identity of a garrulous old retired guy. I know that sounds pessimistic.

On a more positive note, Sena and I had a great time in New York City three years ago. We’re glad to have the memories. Sena is optimistic and resilient by nature. She’ll help me imagine brighter times coming in the future.

The Big Rocks

Today we went for a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail. It’s been a while because we’ve been pretty busy doing a lot of things that take up a lot of time but are not so much fun. I had nearly forgotten how relaxing it can be to just do a simple thing like go for a walk and experience nature.

Afterward, Sena wanted to go shopping for rocks. That’s right, we paid money for rocks. They were for the garden. The whole trip today reminded me of Stephen Covey’s story about putting in the big rocks first. It’s about putting the important things first in your life. At certain stages in my life, that has been difficult. It’s a good thing we get reminders now and then to put the big rocks in first.

Derecho: Straight Line to Iowa

As the yard waste collection worker approached our small, neat bundles of small tree branches tied up with twine, he just shook his head. He and his partner picked them up by the twine and tossed them in the truck. For a moment, I was afraid they would refuse to collect these relatively tiny remnants of the most devastating inland hurricane to smash Iowa in over a decade. It’s known as a derecho, which is Spanish for “straight line.” It refers to the straight-line winds which were clocked at well over 100 miles per hour on August 10, 2020.

The governor has requested federal aid. People died, many were injured, left homeless, and without power or means of communication for days which is extending to over a week now. Crops were ruined.

Trees and homes were ripped apart and scattered over the land. We knew when it ended that the cleanup job would be unimaginably hard. So that made the requirement to make tidy bundles of twigs festooned with twine all the more surreal. We and neighbors stacked the tree debris as neatly as we could in separate piles, never doubting that the city would understand that we were caught short. We just didn’t have time to stock up on twine in anticipation of a derecho.

The piles were left and so we thought, that’s understandable. The city was caught short as well. Then we heard that the reason they were left was that the bundles were not gift-wrapped.

So, we wrapped them up. It turns out it made the difference between allowing the piles of twigs to sit there and rot the grass underneath—or getting them collected.

It reminds me of a line from the movie Men in Black 2 in which the neurolyzed Agent K as the punctilious postmaster gently scolds a customer for failing to submit a “properly wrapped” parcel— “Brown paper and triple twist twine are the preferred media; thank you for your time.”

On August 10, 2020, the wind screamed like I’ve never heard it before. I made several trips to the basement in anticipation of a tornado, but we got something just as terrifying—the derecho. The power was off for a little over a couple of days. It took about a week before I got cell phone and internet access back. Thankfully, we were not injured and we had a roof over our heads.

Later in the week, we saw a long line of cars outside of a local hardware store—people waiting to buy $700 generators. Later that same afternoon, the power came back on. They’ll be ready next time.

Right after the storm stopped, I went out to get our mail (yes, the post person was out, believe it or not!). My jaw dropped when I noticed the fallen Maple tree in our front yard. We were lucky it didn’t fall on our house. I didn’t have a chainsaw. I cut it up with a 20-inch handsaw. My wife and I trimmed and stacked the remnants in our driveway. I didn’t think of triple twist twine at the time.

The last derecho I remember in Iowa was the Corn Belt derecho in 1998. I was an Assistant Professor in the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics Psychiatry Department. I remember pulling a tree branch off the roof of the house my wife and I had recently purchased. The streets were full of downed trees and in some cases were impassable. One of my colleagues called it a straight-line windstorm, the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing. I hoped I would never see such devastation again.

On the other hand, Iowans will make a straight-line comeback.

Bent Out of Shape

It never occurred to me that my smartphone (an iPhone 6) might be damaged. I thought the Otterbox case was just getting old and stretching out of shape. A guy asked me if my phone was bent and I told him that it was just the cover getting stretched. He looked at me with a doubtful expression.

Looking back on it, I suspect the real problem had been growing (literally) for at least several months. I noticed that the case was starting to crack, so a few days ago, I simply removed it.

The screen of my smartphone had separated along the sides by several millimeters—enough to peek inside and see a long rectangular black shape. That turned out to be the very swollen battery. I had no idea the battery was rectangular and took up much of the middle space of the inside of the phone.

In fact, it was rapidly taking up more space by the day. The long sides of the touchscreen were completely separated from the back and it was secured only by the top and bottom ends—barely. The phone worked fine, though.

I first bought the phone five years ago, at the urging of my residents. I had only just got a flip phone several years before. By the way, I just retired from my position as a consulting psychiatrist at an academic medical center.

I remember the day I got the smartphone in the store. I bought the Otterback case and clip so I could carry it on my belt and, uncharacteristically had filled out the warranty card for both. The phone has not been out of the case since then.

One of the residents created a picture of me and a smartphone in a setting from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The point was my awkwardness with modern technology. Little did I know that the black monolith would eventually come to signify so much more later—in the form of a long black battery that would go bad, eventually warp my phone and possibly even explode. It reminds me of the bowling alley scene in Men in Black 3 in which young Agent K holds a large phone to his ear while Agent J warns “Don’t put that up to your head!”

Anyway, I took it to a cell phone store, thinking I would have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new phone. I must have made a singular impression on the salesman. Because of the pandemic, he was wearing a mask and I was wearing a shield so he could see my facial expressions as well as my white hair as I moaned and groaned about the high cost of cell phone plans and phones. Maybe out of sympathy, but probably also partly because of a desire to get me out of the store away from listening customers, he recommended CPR. That’s not cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It’s short for Cell Phone Repair and their little shop was right around the corner within walking distance.

I wasted no time and the guys there were very helpful, quickly diagnosed the problem as a swollen black monolith battery, donned Explosive Ordnance Disposal suits, and applied the fix. They replaced the bad battery, squeezed my phone back together and it took less than an hour. They charged me $60, which was a far cry better than the $600 I had initially thought I was going to have to give up.

They also urged me to claim the warranty on my Otterbox equipment instead of charging me $50 for what they carry in their store. They assured me that Otterbox would likely honor the warranty. In fact, Otterbox charged shipping only and tracking information indicates delivery will be tomorrow.

I’m nearly bent back into shape.

ADDENDUM : Actually, Otterbox even cancelled the shipping charge. Delivered, assembled, and back on my belt before 1PM 8/7/2020. I definitely recommend Cell Phone Repair.

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 telling you the truth.

That was the point of starting the blog in the first place, to tell the truth about what the journey to retirement and finally getting there is really like for me.

My guess is that I’m in the early stages and the angst will probably pass. On the other hand, I have more than once considered going back to work. I could talk myself into it pretty easily. On the other hand, the pandemic and other upheavals have changed the environment where I used to work as a general hospital psychiatric consultant.

It’s not the same world. And I’m evolving too. Right now, I feel lost. It occurs to me this is a lot like homesickness.

Ironically, that’s pretty much how I felt when my wife and I first moved to Iowa City over 30 years ago so I could start medical school. Even then, I felt out of place. I’d been the proverbial older student all through undergraduate years and never felt like I quite fit in.

I nearly quit medical school in the second year. It was a struggle to stick it out. I wanted to return to what I had been so comfortable doing in the past. I worked for a consulting engineer firm as a survey crew tech and drafter. I got really comfortable in the culture, which is why I started off majoring in engineering. I let go of that pretty quickly. I got homesick. But I didn’t go back.

I came down with homesickness a couple more times after I started working as a psychiatric consultant in an academic center. Twice I left for private practice because I thought I would like working in “the real world” of medicine. I paid dearly for that. At those times, I went back home.

This anxiety, tension, and longing for the familiar now that I’m retired is a lot like homesickness. I guess part of the cure is time.

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 new life as well as a new home. A new beginning follows the termination.

There’s a lot of stuff coming to the new mailbox on the curb outside. We’re getting a mix of new things in the outer mailbox—the same is happening in my inner mailbox. Sorting the mail in both is definitely a challenge right now.

I’m still working out how things will be in the new home, and in the new life stage. I’m wrestling with a lot of new goals, both practical in the outer world and psychological in the inner world.

There is good news in the mailbox, and some not so good. Retiring meant moving away from a daily work schedule which kept me occupied and focused on being a specific kind of person for a long time. I was a psychiatric consultant in an academic medical center. I played a specific role, had specific tasks and challenges which brought specific rewards and frustrations.

That mailbox was always crammed full of stuff and, while a lot of it was good news, some of it was junk mail. I was often rewarded for my work as a consultant and as a teacher. On the other hand, my focus was frequently on work, which left an imbalance elsewhere in my life. Work itself was often full of obstacles.

Now, the new mailbox is full of surprises. Many of them remind me I have a new skillset I need to develop as a retiree. The junk mail consists of things like anxiety about the change in my identity (fireman to retiree), boredom, and frustration over the need to learn how to fix a loose faucet handle instead of catatonia.

There will always be psychological junk mail. The thing about that kind of junk mail is that I can’t just toss it in the garbage. In the last month, I’ve lapsed in my mindfulness practice because of all the tasks of moving and making the transition not just to another home—but to a new identity.

I’ll be working on getting back to mindfulness, although I remember the message sent by the UIHC director of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). It was prefaced by a quote:

“I am thankful that thus far today I have not had any unkind thoughts or said any harsh words or done anything I regret. However, I need to get out of bed and so things may become more difficult.”

Sylvia Boorstein, Mindfulness teacher and author.

My mindfulness mat is rolled up in a room downstairs. My mind is also rolled up—tight around thoughts that are impossible to avoid or deny. Another quote from Sylvia about self-talk:

“Sweetheart, you are in pain. Relax, take a breath. Let’s pay attention to what is happening; then we’ll figure out what to do.”

Sylvia Boorstein, Mindfulness teacher and author.

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. Does that ever really end?

I can tell that what will really end at around 5:00 PM tomorrow is my career as a general hospital psychiatric consultant. It has been a long time coming. I’ve been on a 3-year phased retirement contract and going back and forth between wishing for it to end sooner and being scared to death as the final day approaches.

There are those last things: handing in the keys, the white coats, the parking hang tag and the like. I’ve cleaned out my office and somebody already wants it. I’m surprised that I’m just the tiniest bit territorial about the place, which is strange. I never spent much time in it because I was always chasing consults around the hospital.

I’ve never retired before. I wonder what the rules are. I still don’t know how to answer everybody’s question: “What are you going to do?”

There is the “new” house. It’s actually an older home, which fits my status as an older person, I guess.

The floors squeak and creak, a lot like my joints. There are little jobs and slightly bigger jobs to do for which I’m painfully aware of the need to develop a whole new skill set—or at least relearn them.

It’s about new noises and new animals. A fox trots across our yard occasionally. I’m used to deer, but we’ve never spotted a fox on our lawn. It has a rusty coat streaked with a lot of gray. It looks old. But it’s a good hunter and more than once we’ve seen it carrying a big mouthful of something that might have put up a pretty good fight.

I’m touched by the well-wishers, and those who say thanks for the memories. Just about every day of the last week, I’ve seen and done something at the hospital which makes me say, “That is what I’ll miss.”

One day to go.