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Frank and His Stump Grinder
This is a follow-up post on Frank and his stump grinder estimate from last week (“Stumped”). By the way, he was the only stump grinder to return my call about getting a quote for the job. The name of his business is Corridor Stump Grinding (CSG) and the web page says it all: “We Remove…
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Retirement and Loss of the Crusade
I recently read an article about Maintenance of Psychiatry (MOC) written by Dr. Henry A. Nasrallah, MD and published this month in Current Psychiatry. The title is “Revamp the maintenance of certification program.” It brought back memories of my crusade to do the same thing in past years. I lost my connection to that crusade…
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Jenny Lind Porter Scott: In Remembrance
I met Dr. Jenny Lind Porter Scott, one of my favorite teachers, in the mid-1970s during my first two years of college at what was then called Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University or HTU). It’s one of America’s historically black colleges. I didn’t graduate from there, instead transferring credit to Iowa State University and taking…
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Stumped
Ever since the derecho last month, we’ve been stumped by stumps—tree stumps. It has been a lesson in the value of persistence. The tree in our front yard got knocked over almost right at ground level. I cut it up with a 20-inch hand saw. But the stump has me stumped so far. You can…
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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…
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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…
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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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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…
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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…
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