reminiscence – Page 9 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Because I Wanted a Hurts Donut…

I got an urge for a Hurts Donut so I walked on the Clear Creek Trail to Coralville get to the little hole in the wall shop. You can easily walk to several places in Coralville on the trail. Actually, I wanted to also check out the Coralville Public Library and see S.T. Morrison Park. I’ve never been to that park so it was a novelty all by itself.

It took about 45 minutes to walk to that part of town. It’s great exercise and beats the traffic. You have to walk under some railroad tracks and there’s a sign warning you not to stand in the culvert below while the train is passing over the top. I can see why.

There are funny signs in the rustic Hurts Donut shop. You can see the corny “Wanna hurts donut?” jokes on the walls. There’s another sign saying “School is important but donuts are importanter,” which reminds me of my coffee mug which says sort of the same thing about cribbage: “Education is important but cribbage is importanter.”

The Old-Fashioned donuts there are so good, but so bad for you. I had two.

The Coralville Public Library has a beautiful skylight. I haven’t been in a public library for ages and so it was fascinating to see that libraries haven’t changed much.

In fact, after I found one of Dave Barry’s books, “Dave Barry Book of Bad Songs,” (published in 1997; I had a copy but it got lost in a move) I asked one of the librarians about the old rule I learned as a kid. You might remember it too if you’re old enough. When you pick a book off the shelf and go to a reading room to look it over—can you just put it back on the shelf where you found it or do you have to give it the librarian who will reshelve it?

If you guessed that you have to give it to a librarian, you’re right and you’ve probably dated yourself. The librarian joked that some things never change. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Among the things that never change are the difficult to understand lyrics in some songs. Dave Barry wrote a whole chapter about it in the Book of Bad Songs, “Songs People Get Wrong.” He mentions one of them, which I always got wrong but never told anyone about it because it was embarrassing. It’s a lyric in the song “Blinded by the Light” that Barry said was done by Bruce Springsteen, but which I didn’t hear until Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered it.

So, here’s my deal with that lyric. I always heard “wrapped up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce.” Barry notes that many people made the same mistake. Funny thing, Barry never mentions what that common mistake is called and it’s a mondegreen (a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from mishearing the lyrics of a song). Music is important but mondegreens are importanter.

I finally saw Morrison Park and it’s a very restful place. You can contemplate the sculpture which is placed in the center of a pond. Ducks paddle around it. It’s called “Silver Lilly” and it was made by Professor Hu Hung-shu. Art is important.

Thoughts on the Big Mo Pod Show “Funkin’ Down the Highway”

This is a post about the Big Mo Pod Show we heard last night on the KCCK FM radio dial 106.9. Incidentally, the KCCK fund drive was enormously successful this year, earning $100,000 in donations, according to Big Mo (aka John Heim) himself.

One item is the cover by Buddy Miles of the song “Tobacco Road.” This rendition was different from performances by other artists. Big Mo liked it and so did I. I did a little web search on it because I couldn’t catch all the lyrics. It was originally done by John D. Loudermilk in 1960. Miles’ version is essentially the same.

What interested me even more about “Tobacco Road” are the associations I have about it with specific literary works. I’ll admit I’ve never read nor seen the film adaptations of Erskine Caldwell’s books, “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.” But one of my favorite short stories by James Thurber is “Bateman Comes Home,” which was published in a collection entitled “The Thurber Carnival,” in a hardcover edition in 1945. You’ve got to read it to get a sense of how comical the parody is of the regional dialect used in Caldwell’s novels. In fact, Thurber himself gives the game away about his intent in writing “Bateman Comes Home” by adding a wry comment as a subtitle:

Written after reading several recent novels about the deep south and confusing them a little—as the novelists themselves do—with “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.”

He also adds another comment at the end of the short story: “If you keep on long enough it turns into a novel.”

The other thing I noticed about the podcast last night is that one of the songs which was not included in the list, “Joliet Bound,” was performed by an artist I haven’t heard of, the Reverend Shawn Amos, who is no relation to me, of course. But my background as a psychiatrist made me take special notice of details about his family, one of which is that his mother, Shirl-ee Ellis, a singer herself, had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Sadly, she eventually died by suicide. Shawn Amos is also the youngest son of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie founder, Wally Amos (again, no relation), although I’ve gotten a lot of friendly ribbing about that.

The song “Joliet Bound” is about a guy who expresses that he’s wrongly accused of killing a man over a woman and is on his way to Joliet prison in Joliet, Illinois. The Joliet Prison is a tourist destination nowadays and has other distinctions attached to it. It was featured in the 1980 film, the Blues Brothers. There were some famous inmates there, among them John Wayne Gacy, who was once evaluated and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by psychiatrists at The University of Iowa in 1968 as described in Dr. Donald Black’s book, “Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy).”

Congratulations KCCK Radio!

Notes on the Blues and Rivers of Whiskey

I listened to the Big Mo Blues Show last night on KCCK radio (88.3 on your dial) as I usually do on Friday nights. It runs from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm and you can learn a lot from Big Mo (aka John Heim) about the blues.

He also has a podcast called the Big Mo Pod Show, which is based on his blues show. He gets quizzed about some of the songs he played on Friday night by Producer Noah (as Big Mo calls him). Last night he was on target for all 5 of the songs he played and why he played them.

One of the songs I’ve never heard before but it was done by Taj Mahal and Keb Mo, artists I’m familiar with just from listening to Big Mo’s show. The title was “Diving Duck Blues. The chorus goes “If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck, I’d dive to the bottom and I’d never come up.”

That led to a discussion of how alcoholism was sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) a part of the life of blues musicians. In fact, the lead off song last night was “Big Road Blues,” sung by Tommy Johnson. His last name just happens to be the same as Robert Johnson who made the song “Crossroads” famous because he claimed he sold his soul to the devil in order to become a great blues musician. Several blues artists made the claim, which Big Mo debunked as a ruse to get fans to pay more money to hear them perform.

But Tommy Johnson struggled with alcoholism and, according to Big Mo, was driven to the point of drinking Sterno, which was poisonous because it contained methyl alcohol.

This can lead you to think that maybe all blues music is gritty, played by alcoholics, and even depressing as declared by the lead character, Navin Johnson, played by Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk” (a white guy raised by a black family).

Incidentally, this reminds me that a recent study showing that digital cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for those suffering from alcohol use disorder.

Anyway, blues musicians don’t always play sad, gritty music and die from drinking Sterno. One that is actually funny is “You Left the Water Running” by Otis Redding. You can look up the lyrics or listen to anyone who covers the song and it would be difficult not to laugh out loud.

And speaking of covering a song, Bill Withers originally wrote and sang “Lean on Me” back in 1972 which Keb Mo covered recently. I think it’s one of those uplifting examples of blues music which won’t send you diving to the bottom of any whiskey rivers.

University of Iowa Writing Programs Get High Ranking from U.S. News & World Report

The University of Iowa ranks No. 9 across all universities in the country for its power in the writing disciplines., according to the 2024 U.S. News & World Report.

The school is well known for its writing programs of which the The Writers Workshop is the best known.

The University of Iowa also gives medical students a leg up on writing in its Writing and Humanities Program, which offers courses such as writing and medicine and editorial writing.

This reminds me of a couple of things, one of which was the University of Iowa medical school note service. Many medical schools have note services so that not all students have to write their own lecture notes. It’s ironic in a way that one of the best known public medical schools didn’t encourage all the medical students to labor over their own class notes. I volunteered once to write notes for the class. It was hard work.

The other thing writing education at the University of Iowa reminds me of is the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk. There are several plaques along Iowa Avenue which honor famous authors who had Iowa connections, often through the Iowa Writers Workshop. My favorite is one by Kurt Vonnegut, a former teacher at the workshop.

Thoughts on X-Files Episode “Sunshine Days”

I saw the X-Files episode “Sunshine Days” again last night. It’s the second time I’ve seen it. It’s about a guy who calls himself Oliver who has telekinetic power and who yearns for a father-son relationship with a paranormal researcher (Dr. Reitz) who studied him when he was a kid named Anthony.

The set of an old 1970s TV show “The Brady Bunch” was used. It was something Oliver created using the power of his mind. As a child, he used to insist that he and Dr. Reitz watch the show regularly. In his mind, it was the perfect family he always wanted but never had.

Anyway, Oliver (Anthony) endangers his life when he uses his telekinetic powers as an adult. He can’t control them and nearly dies from using them. He ends up near death in the hospital after showing the FBI agents including Scully and Doggett (who replaced Mulder) his miraculous ability. The agents and Dr. Reitz are ecstatic because they think it will change the world and humanity.

But after they realize the life-threatening nature of Oliver’s powers, they all agree, including Dr. Reitz, that Oliver should never use them again. Dr. Reitz even tells Oliver (who now wants to be called Anthony) firmly that he can’t use his power, to which Oliver replies that he can’t be alone. Then, Dr. Reitz tells Oliver that he’ll never have to be alone because he’ll always be with him.

A lot of fans hated it because it was the penultimate episode before the final show of the 9^th and final season of the X-Files. It was one of the many Monster-of-the-Week (MOTW) shows that had nothing to do with the extraterrestrial mythology.

I liked the MOTW episodes better the ET/conspiracy shows, and Sunshine Days is one of my favorites. However, I never watched The Brady Bunch and the whole perfectly happy and well-adjusted family idea was ridiculously implausible in my opinion.

I doubt there is such a thing as a perfect family. Mine certainly was not and look how well I turned out. Even in nature, there are examples of savagery that can make you doubt the ultimate wisdom of whoever or whatever is in charge of evolution.

For example, birds can be exquisitely cruel. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of completely different species of birds, where the cowbird chicks bully their weaker nestlings. And surely just about everyone has seen the pitiless pecking of the larger of the two shoebill chicks in which the parents calmly watch as the smaller chick gets stepped on, pushed out of the next and essentially murdered by the bigger chick. This is because the parents know there is not enough water for both.

Even the song “A Boy Named Sue” is based on the natural law of survival of the fittest, which has nothing to do with kindness. Incidentally, that song came out in 1969, the same year that The Brady Bunch show began.

On the other hand, the reconciliation of Anthony with Dr. Rietz always fills me with joy.

The Incredible Shrinking Headshrinker

Last week we saw the 1957 movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man” on the Svengoolie show on the MeTV channel. We’ve never seen it before and it actually got pretty good reviews back in the day. The main character, Scott Carey, was played by Grant Williams. You can watch the movie for free on the Internet Archive.

According to some interpretations, the story uses the metaphor of diminishing size to highlight the diminishing role of masculinity in American society in the 1950s or human notions in general about one’s self-worth in society.

It got me thinking about how the challenges of adjusting to retirement as a process has been (and still is to some degree) for me. I started out with gradual reduction of my work schedule in the form of a phased retirement contract. It was difficult.

I was reminded of how difficult it was to slow down, especially as a teacher of residents and other health care trainees, when I was going through some old papers after the recent move to our new house. They included teaching awards I’d received over the years.

I was struck by how small my self-perceived role in psychiatry and medicine has gradually become in the last few years. I’ve been shrinking, similar to Scott Carey. In fact, I’m a shrinking headshrinker.

I don’t want to spend too much time ruminating about what retirement means to me. I think it’s a very common response to perceive the world gets smaller when you retire.

It doesn’t help much to intellectualize about shrinking in this way. Scott Carey eventually accepted his diminishing stature, even to the point of disappearance. Grief about this kind of loss is normal, although I’m realizing that grief might never completely disappear.

Back to the Roller Window Shades?

I just heard about the new regulation banning cords on window shades. I didn’t know that window cords were so dangerous.

We recently moved into our new house and need window coverings. We’ve had corded window coverings (mostly blinds) for years wherever we moved. I guess we’ll have to consider other options.

This reminds me of the old roller shades we used to have. I couldn’t find a free picture of them on pixabay, no matter how I worded the search term. The ones I remember were white and had a mechanism in the roller which retracted the shade—if you had just the right wrist motion.

Many times, the shade ended up in a heap at your feet. You could injure yourself by tripping over the shade, or sometimes by the shade suddenly snapping upwards and smacking you in the face.

There are newer versions of roller shades and they’re all expensive. You can still get old-fashioned roller shades, but I think they cost a lot more.

There’s an old photograph of a room with several roller shades on this web page.

Thoughts on the Homeless Mentally Ill

The homeless man who lives on the sidewalk outside our hotel reminds me of a couple of things. One is Dr. Gerard Clancy, MD who is University of Iowa Health Care Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Senior Associate Dean of External Affairs.

I remember Gerry, who was in the department of psychiatry when I was a resident. I saw his picture in the newspaper and hearing about him riding a bicycle around Iowa City doing a sort of outreach to the homeless mentally ill.

I found an archived article mentioning him published in 1995 in the Daily Iowan. The story starts on the bottom of the front page, entitled “I.C. opens new doors for area’s mentally ill.” It continues on page 9A.

The story mentions Dr. Clancy and what was called then the Clinical Outreach Services and the Emergency Housing Program (EHP). The challenges then sound a lot like what they are now: long waiting lists for psychiatric evaluation and treatment, a lack of funding for the treatment of mental illness, and a lack of preventive care. The most common mental illnesses in the homeless mentally ill are chronic schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. The idea of reaching out to them “on their own turf” as Clancy was quoted, was to help them feel more comfortable talking about their mental illness.

The housing situation for this population of those struggling with mental illness was dismal then and it’s still dismal.

The homeless guy I’ve been calling Bob lives on the sidewalk next to a busy street. It’s just my opinion that he’s mentally ill based on my observations of his behavior. I’ve never tried to talk to him. However, Bob gets visits from people who obviously have differing views about the way he lives.

Some of them do talk to him and, although I can’t hear their conversations, the actions tell me important things. Some bring him what I call “care packages,” often food, water, and other items. They may start by acting kind, although may get impatient with him. Others try to clean up his sidewalk, and may criticize him. The police occasionally visit and have so far not taken him into custody.

It looks like things have not changed much since 1995 regarding the homeless mentally ill based on what I write here about my observations. In fact, it’s easy to find current news stories that say things are getting worse.

At the beginning of this post, I said I found a couple of things. The other thing was a very thorough teaching presentation about the current state of formal outreach to this population. It’s available on the web as a power point presentation by another University of Iowa faculty, Dr. Victoria Tann, MD, entitled “Assertive Community Treatment 101.”

Dr. Tann is currently an IMPACT Team psychiatrist. It’s an excellent source of background on the history of this effort at outreach to the homeless mentally ill. It also summarizes what’s happening with the program now.

Back to the Stanley Museum of Art

We went for a return visit to the Stanley Museum of Art the other day. It’s been a couple of years. There were a couple of head sculptures outside in the front of the building. They were in honor of one of my former medical school teachers, Dr. Richard Kerber. And the Keith Haring exhibit is excellent. He visited Horn Elementary School in 1989.

Thoughts on Hobos and Homelessness

We can see the man from our hotel window. We assume he’s homeless. He has a small area where he sits on the curb next to the street. He does this most of the day. He has a blanket and a few other loose items which sometimes are strewn on the sidewalk or the grass.

Even in 90-plus heat, he’s out there, sometimes standing beneath a small tree, presumably for shade although it’s inadequate. He waves his arms around in what looks like a futile attempt to cool himself. He might just be restless. Other times he sits on his blanket. Occasionally, people stop their cars and seem to be trying to communicate with him. He most often ignores them.

One of the hotel residents approaches him sometimes. It looked like he gives him something (probably a cigarette). Once, the homeless man left his station by the street and walked over to the front of the hotel, waving his arms, seemingly because the hotel resident was speaking to him. We couldn’t see what happened after that, but when he returned to the street, he lit a cigarette. We also saw he accepted fluid, maybe a can of soda.

Later, some people in a car gave him something they bought in a nearby drive-up fast-food joint. He threw out the ice from his drink, which he didn’t consume and sprinkled the fluid on his arms. The people left and returned later with several items they gave him. Some of it looked like more water, which he again poured on his arms. There was a backpack or something like it. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

He couldn’t ignore them when they try to help him (water, food, etc.). One person tried to help him clean up his little camp by picking up his trash. The police came out to check on him. We couldn’t hear the short conversation. After she left, he continued to toss his water bottles and other items into the parking lot. He sleeps on the pavement.

This reminded me of a couple of times when I’ve seen hobos. I don’t see the homeless man as a hobo. The term “hobo” is not synonymous with homeless, vagrant, or tramp. Hobos prefer not to have a home, travel around to find work, may still ride the rails to get around, and don’t see themselves as tramps.

As a young man, I worked for consulting engineers as a draftsman and survey crew worker in Mason City. This was in the 1970s. We traveled to outlying cities. One day, we went to Britt for a job. It was during the Britt Hobo Days Convention. It was not the first time I ever heard of it.

Funny thing, I thought I recognized one of the hobos in the café where we got coffee. He was wolfing down a big breakfast. When he was finished, he left in a hurry. I just assumed he was a hobo in town for the festivities. But he looked so familiar.

And suddenly it dawned on me. He had been a kindergarten classmate of mine. I couldn’t recall his name, but it was him.

Another memory that occurred to me was much later in my life, when I was a psychiatrist and co-attending on the medical-psychiatry unit in University Hospital in Iowa City. We admitted a patient who had been found walking around and around in a circle in the street, and seemed confused. Evidently the patient had an acute medical problem and no diagnosable psychiatric illness.

The patient identified as a hobo and was proud of it. The person was polite, grateful, and cooperative. The person refused any help from us beyond help for the acute medical problem. We discharged the person to the street.

Hobo life is different nowadays, I gather. Many have cars and phones. If you look carefully at their photos on the Britt Hobo Days web site, they don’t make me think of homelessness or mental illness. They have made a choice.

On the other hand, homelessness is often not a choice and severe mental illness is not uncommon. There is a homeless shelter in Iowa City, and the resources include a supportive community living program for those who struggle with mental illness. One member of the board of directors is a psychiatrist. Not every homeless person wants to go there. The University of Iowa Health Care has an Integrated Multidisciplinary Program of Assertive Community Treatment (IMPACT).