reminiscence – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Big Mo Blues Show Christmas Music Featuring Peter Green

Last night was the second time John Heim (aka Big Mo) introduced the song “Silent Night” by Peter Green and the Men in Blue using the title in German, “Stille Nacht.” He also played it last Friday night, saying “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” in what sounded like perfect German. I immediately liked this version.

I might be remembering this wrong, but when I was a kid, I think I somehow got assigned to sing “Silent Night” when I went out caroling (in a horse-drawn sleigh, no less!) with the members of our church. It’s a good thing smartphones weren’t around to record that.

I remember last week trying to find it on the Big Mo Blues Show playlist but I couldn’t. Then I tried to find it by searching the title in German. I forgot or didn’t hear the name of the band. I gave up looking for it and I wondered why he said the title in German.

So, after I heard it again last night and looked for it on the playlist, I found it right away on the web.

I have never heard of Peter Green, so I looked him up and found a Wikipedia article about him. His original name was Peter Allen Greenbaum. I found out that Greenbaum is a German surname (originally Grünbaum which means greenery or green tree. As an aside, Heim is also a German name. It means “home.” For many people (just listen to his Shout-Outs list!) the Big Mo Blues Show is home.

Those are just observations I find interesting and maybe point to a clue why Big Mo pronounced the title of the song “Silent Night” in German.

Anyway, the Wikipedia article doesn’t say anything about Peter Green’s ancestry. He was born in 1946 in London and died in his sleep at the age of 73 on Canvey Island, Essex.

He was a gifted blues rock guitarist and singer-songwriter and was founder and original leader of the band Fleetwood Mac. He was a very influential figure in the British blues movement. Some thought he was greater than the other often-mentioned blues guitarist, Eric Clapton.

Peter got some coaching early in life from his older brother but was essentially self-taught by the age of 11. In the mid to late 1960’s people were calling him “The Green God” which was similar to what many were calling Eric Clapton (“God’).

Around 1969(70) Peter started to develop signs of mental illness and during the 1970s he also used LSD several times. Eventually he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Like other people who develop psychiatric illness, it was probably difficult to settle the chicken/egg question of which came first. He attributed much of his mental health issues to his use of LSD. He was hospitalized and treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the mid-1970s.

However, by the 1980s, he returned to the music scene. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. He was described as being more interested in expressing emotion in music rather than displaying dazzling technical skill. He influenced many musicians.

Merry Christmas!

Swearing as a Performance Improvement Method?

I read this article about swearing being a good thing to do to increase your workout performance or whatever. There’s a link to the study that a researcher says supports that conclusion. I mean this story is talking about really bad words being good for you. It reminds me of a time when I was a pre-teen kid and broke my wrist falling out of a barn loft. I don’t remember exactly how I got to the emergency room. We didn’t have a car so our next-door neighbor must have driven me with my crooked arm and my hysterical mom to the hospital.

My mom was in the emergency room with me. When I cut loose with a torrent of really bad words, nurses had to practically carry her out because she fainted. This was right after I asked the doctor if it was OK if I swore and he said “Go ahead,” injected anesthetic—and immediately started to manhandle my wrist. I don’t think I ever swore in front of my mom before that.

I don’t remember if the swearing helped me withstand the pain or not. I don’t think so.

There was my other trip to a hospital for chest surgery when I was in my early teens. I had a chest tube after the operation. My roommate had undergone some kind of abdominal surgery. We had a lot of stitches and were in a lot of pain, which was bearable if we didn’t move at all. It even hurt to breathe. But the other factor was the TV in our room. It was way across the room and there was some kind of comedy show on. It was really funny—which made us feel really terrible. We could barely move and even had to talk quietly, yet this funny show made us laugh, which expanded our chest and abdomen areas, stretching the sutures. It was excruciating.

Even swearing would have hurt, not to mention laughing out loud. We really couldn’t stand to laugh and it was too bad I can’t describe the sound of two guys trying not to even chuckle. If you e4ver watched Loony Tunes cartoons and remember how Elmer Fudd sounded with he laughed—that was how we sounded because we were trying to suppress laughing. It was funny but pitiful. My roomie finally made this desperate slow motion move out of bed, crept to the TV and shut it off. I was so grateful. Neither one of us ever swore.

The other thing this swearing for power reminds me of is the movie Signs, which starred Mel Gibson as Graham Hess. It was about an alien invasion and in one scene, some people/aliens (they don’t’ yet know what) are running around the house and Graham’s brother Merril (Joaquin Phoenix) are getting set to chase them. Merril tells Graham to yell and curse, although because Graham is a former Episcopal priest, swearing is beyond him:

All right, listen, we both go outside, move around the house in opposite directions. We act crazy, insane with anger, make them crap in their pants, force them around till we meet up on the other side.
Graham Hess: Explain “act crazy”.
Merrill: You know, curse and stuff.
Graham Hess: You want me to curse?
Merrill: You don’t mean it. It’s just for show. What?
Graham Hess: Well, it won’t be convincing. It doesn’t sound natural when I curse.
Merrill: Just make noises, then.
Graham Hess: Explain “noises”.
Merrill: Are you gonna do this or what?
Graham Hess: No, I’m not.
Merrill: All right, you want them stealing something in the house next time?
[outside light comes on]
Merrill: On the count of three. One…
Graham Hess: All right.
Merrill: two… three!
Graham Hess: Ahh! I’m insane with anger!
Merrill: We’re gonna beat your ass bitch! We’re gonna tear your head off!
Graham Hess: I’m losing my mind! It’s time for an ass-whupping!
[Merrill and Graham meet each other]
Graham Hess: I cursed.
Merrill: I heard.

Anyway, I think we have to make a distinction between cursing about something or cursing at someone before we start claiming, like the author of the study says:

“Swearing is literally a calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool at our disposal for when we need a boost in performance.”—psychology researcher Richard Stephens of Keele University in the UK.

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.

Svengoolie Movie List for December 2025 and a Quiz Question!

This is partly just an announcement of the Svengoolie show movie lineup for the month of December.

But more importantly, there’s a quiz question to see if you can name the movie the shrilling chicken’s question “What the heck is it, Edgar?” comes from in the featured image above.

There are no real prizes for coming up with the right answer. You’ll just have to use your imagination here. According to the picture below, if you get it right you can imagine getting the first place prize, which is a shrilling chicken.

You can imagine getting the 2nd place prize if you name something other than the right answer which is only partially correct (for example, naming something that has the name “Edgar” in it but is otherwise wrong). The 2nd place prize is a picture of a vintage calculator I used to have which could work for a very long time on a couple of AA batteries (over a decade!). I bought this old Sharp ELSI MATE EL-505 back around 1980 when I went to college at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. You can find them on eBay if you really want to do more than just imagine getting a prize. When we bought the new calculator, I think I threw the old one out, probably because it didn’t work even after replacing the batteries.

You can imagine getting the 3^rd place prize if you can’t make a guess at all. This is something that is still being sold by certain auto parts stores, like AutoZone ($5). It’s a wire spark plug gap gauge and adjustment tool. I used it a long time ago. I couldn’t find it in my toolbox but there’s a short video showing how to use it.

While I was out looking for the wire spark plug gauge tool, I found what I think was another type of tool called a feeler gauge. You can use it to measure spark plug gaps and other kinds of clearances. It’s got some rust on it so you could imagine cleaning it up a little but it’s not a prize level item.

Answer to the quiz question (don’t peek if you’re not done reading the post!): It’s from the movie Men in Black (1997). Beatrice asks her husband Edgar “What the heck is it, Edgar?” when he goes out to investigate a loud explosion caused by a spaceship crash landing in their yard.

The Snow Looked Gentle This Morning

The snowfall this morning looked pretty gentle out in our backyard—and then the storm hit the gas. Around 7:30 a.m. the wind was barely blowing and the first snow looked slow.

A half hour later, it was blowing sideways and the plow had just plugged our driveway (Thank you so much!).

Across the street, kids came out to play while the snow was blowing. The neighborhood is still pretty new and pretty much under construction, so not much of a place to play yet.

Sena and I remember going to an outdoor skating area at East Park in Mason City when we were kids. It was really just a pond. Park staff pushed the snow away when the ice was thick enough to skate on. Lots of kids skated there and it was free.

It’s not like nowadays. The ice skating rink at the mall not far from us charges you just to fall down on the ice. I think they charge $7 admission and $3 to rent skates. Skating coaches charge $6—I don’t know if that’s an hourly rate or flat fee.

Anyway, at East Park back in the day you could fall down on the ice for free.

Breaking News: Hands-Free Driving Law in Iowa!

Sena saw a news headline about the new hands-free driving law in Iowa that’s going to be enforced in 2026 (passed in July of this year). Guilty drivers are going to get socked with a $100 fine if they’re caught messing with their cell phones with their hands off the wheel because they might think “hands-free” means you can’t touch the steering wheel.

Drivers have been getting off with a warning for now. Hundreds of people in Iowa die every year because they fool with their cell phones while driving.

You can download a variety of free materials from the Iowa Dept. of Public Safety.

And of course, this reminds me of a Men in Black 3 quote (why not?):

Agent J: Okay! You know how you’re on a airplane and the flight attendant asks you to turn your cell-phone off. And you’re like, I ain’t turning my cell-phone off, that don’t have nothing to do with no damn airplane. Well, [Showing the crowd a crashed spaceship] this is what we get, that’s what happens. It gets up there, bounces around on the satellites, then blam! Just turn your damn cell-phone off. Now you’re gonna drive off a cliff tonight because your GPS don’t work.

The thing about GPS reminds me of a Garmin Nuvi navigator we used years ago. We could plug it into the cigarette lighter power outlet. I had to update the map data from the internet although the Garmin used satellite-based GPS signals to manage the turn-by-turn route instructions.

It worked just fine except when airplane passengers used their cell phones to play Men in Black movies after the flight attendants instructed everybody to turn them off. Most people don’t know that kind of behavior also automatically releases the frozen block of blue ice (waste) from the toilet right over Area 51 (just kidding—actually the wings just fall off!).

I’ve used my old cell phone to get directions driving once or twice but not recently. I set it in the cup holder and never took my hands off the wheel—even when I drove through the front window of Pizza Hut.

So, if you happen to be driving through Iowa in the near future, remember to abide by the new law, which doesn’t mean you can get hands for free at the discount store.

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?

Today is Our 48th Wedding Anniversary!

Today is our 48^th wedding anniversary! I looked through a bunch of photos last night and probably picked all the wrong ones—but I doubt it’ll matter. It has been 48 years, so I’m unlikely to learn from mistakes now.

We were married at the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa. We were nervous, but got through our vows, rang the bell, and cut the wedding cake. We are thankful for friends who were there for us and shared the joy.

We’ve been to a lot of places and had a lot of fun. Times are not always easy. We get through them.

I’m happy and grateful for this funny, crazy woman who wins a lot of cribbage games with me and does more for my soul than I can ever say.

You Need to Check Out the Storyshucker Blog Now!

I stopped by the Storyshucker blog today and it sent me on a wave of nostalgia. You really out to stop by Stuart Perkins’ blog and get that feeling. You can read his post, “Baby Bear” in The Local Scoop Magazine. The link is on my menu, so there’s no excuse!

Stuart has his baby bear and, although I don’t have keepsakes going that far back, it sent me back. It reminded me of our last move (I hate moving!). We have this piggy bank we toss loose change into. I can’t remember when we first got it, ages ago. When we moved last year, we tried to get all the coins in it into our bank, but they wouldn’t just count them and deposit the amount—I had to learn how to roll and wrap them myself! That’s not a great memory.

I had a spark plug gap measuring tool and that was back in the day when guys adjusted stuff like that by hand when tuning up their car engines. It’s a good thing I don’t do that anymore. I accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake one time and put a dent in the garage wall. That’s not such a great memory, either.

We used to have an old vintage calculator I used when I was a student at Iowa State University. Memories linked to that are a little better.

We lose track of some things from our past and that can be a good thing occasionally. Guys like Stuart know what’s worth keeping.

Thoughts on Retirement, MIB Style

Sena alerted me to an article about the 28^th anniversary of when the first Men in Black movie hit the theaters in 1997. The author praises it and says it’s still pretty good.

I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but it was probably not in 1997. I was in my second year of being an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (now called University of Iowa Health Care). I was too busy to do much of anything except run around the hospital responding to requests for psychiatry consultations from medicine and surgery. I did that a long time.

I’ve been blogging since 2010. I cancelled my first blog which was called The Practical Psychosomaticist. I then restarted blogging, calling it Go Retire Psychiatrist. One blog that pays homage to my career and to the Men in Black films is “The Last White Coat I’ll Ever Wear.”

It’s part reminiscence and part comedy in the style of Men in Black dialogue and jokes. Since I retired, I have not been back to the hospital except for scheduled appointments in the eye and dentistry clinics. I don’t know if I’ve ever reconciled myself to being retired. If someone were to tell me “We have a situation and we need your help” (think Men in Black II), I would probably say something like “There is a free mental health clinic on the corner of Lilac and East Valley.”