Lost on Hood

I went to bed last night thinking about the three climbers (two Texans and a New Yorker) who have been stranded on Mt. Hood for a week. One of the three was injured at 11,000 feet, and the other two dug him a snow cave, called for help on a cell phone, and started down the mountain to guide rescuers. None have been heard from since, and seventy mile per hour winds and whiteout conditions have made the mountain unsafe for searchers.

I have read almost every book the Eugene library has about mountaineering accidents. Just last night, while the local news was focused on the Hood climbers, I finished a story about a man who spent two nights alone on Denali with compound fractures to both ankles. Despite being cold, he was forced to stuff his legs into a snow-filled backpack to stop the bleeding. He sat on an eighteen-inch ledge, not knowing if help would reach him before he died. The dense cloud cover finally cleared enough for a helicopter to lower a rescuer by a 200-foot rope.

Many climbers have lost all their fingers and toes to frostbite, if not their hands and feet as well. Yet, many of these people go back and re-climb the very mountain that nearly killed them. Climbing is a strange passion, and one which I might have known nothing had Peggy not caught the bug.

She is now reading a book (Angels in the Wilderness by Amy Racina) by a woman who broke both legs while hiking alone in a remote region of the High Sierras. Even as Amy lay on the granite looking at her bones protruding from her flesh, one of the thoughts that crossed her mind was how sad she would be if she never got to make another such trip.

I become junior deacon

I decided at the last minute tonight to attend my Masonic Lodge. My ambivalence about Masonry is such that the last minute is usually when I decide to attend. As I biked, I rejoiced in the thought that the officers for the coming year had been installed over the weekend, so at least I wouldn’t get corralled into being one of them. Upon arrival, I learned that the incoming master had arrived so late to the installation that it was called off and was to be held tonight instead.

I furthermore learned that he wanted me to serve as junior deacon. The primary duties are to say a few memorized lines and to bar the entry of anyone who isn’t qualified. I said I would accept the position only if I wasn’t required to wear a tux. The master said he wouldn’t insist on it, but the senior deacon lost no time in sorting through dead men’s clothing in search of one that would fit me.

I am happy for my new position. It will be my first Masonic office since I served as secretary in 1995.

One moral, one not so moral

Peggy put down .25 hours of overtime on her time card last week. Payroll read it as 25 hours and paid her accordingly. Peggy, being Peggy, reported the mistake. Lowell, being Lowell, grieved over the $1,600 loss.

Peggy regards ethical standards as almost inviolable. Certainly, she would lie to a murderer about where she had hidden his gun, but in ordinary life her behavior is consistent. Last week, she was so sure that a clerk at Kinkos had undercharged her by a few pennies that she left me waiting outside with our bikes (in the cold dark night) while she went back to double-check (that’s right, she had already checked once). Even if there had been an undercharge, I doubt that Kinkos would have come out ahead paying the clerk to correct it; but the issue for Peggy had less to do with Kinko’s profit as with her morality. My morality is so disappointing to Peggy that she can scarcely believe I am as bad as I say I am.

Letter from the Chair

From the desk of the Chair
Dept of Psych, Sociology, Anthropology, and Dendrology
Mississippi A&M
Rareback, MS

Dear Mr. Thomas:

Please accept my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Our department recently received a $950,000 government grant to determine whether farmers whose farms are foreclosed undergo a period of career re-evaluation; and I have been doing field research in Honolulu.

I am sorry within reasonable bounds that some of your friends were upset by their low scores on The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College Test of Intelligence, Personality, and Sexual Desirability, and I hope I will not sound callous when I say that, as a psychologist, I am but little interested in people’s feelings. However, I am extremely interested in the reputation of myself and my department, and I take their suggestion that the test lacked credibility with the same gravity that I take death threats to my seven children.

They must surely be aware that Mississippi A&M is an acknowledged leader in psychological research throughout the tri-county area, especially among dairymen. And as you doubtlessly know, our 1958 study, Drawbacks of Breeding Roosters for Monogamy, won wide acclaim among the 1,200 readers of Coxcomb County Poultry Tracks, and I have no doubt but what we have been praised from time to time elsewhere as well.

I can, however, do what psychologists do best, which is to offer your friends an implausibly positive interpretation to an irredeemably bad situation. To whit: the maximum test score was, as you will recall, 100, and some of your friends made as low as 30. They can interpret this in either of two ways. The neurotic way is to feel badly that they scored piss-poor in all three areas covered by the examination (intelligence, personality, and sexual desirability). The healthy alternative is to console themselves with the thought that they just might have scored extremely high in one category and piss-poor in the other two (the questions not being identified as to category). It is a case of whether the glass is all empty or merely two-thirds empty.

For example, of the three categories covered, your friends might decide that only one is of any great importance in their lives. Let’s say, for sake of illustration, that a given friend has little use for intelligence and personality, but holds sexual desirability in high esteem. He could, as well as not, imagine that he scored 100 in that category and zero in the other two. Of course, he could not know with certainty that this (or any other category) was the category he excelled in, but what would be the harm of imagining it?

It is not inconceivable that the simple belief that he is a sexual magnet might increase his desirability to members of the opposite sex (or the same sex—or even another domesticated species, as is sometimes the case in farm country). This is what we psychologists call the placebo effect, although in this instance it might better qualify as the libido effect.

The only other way in which your friends might find consolation is in the knowledge that their poor showing will be of little if any importance after they have passed from this life. On the other hand, if we really are reincarnated, and what we are in this life determines our status in the next life, they could be in big trouble. Fortunately, I can offer a positive interpretation for this scenario as well, but you will first need to contact my office with your insurance information.

Yours
Stu D. Prunus, L.P.N.

A valid test

The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College Test of Intelligence, Personality, and Sexual Desirability

Directions: Answer all questions with either a yes or a no. Do not answer the same question more than once to inflate your score.

1) Do you question whether talking films were really an improvement?

2) Do you go to bed at night anticipating your morning coffee?

3) Do you laugh so hard that you cry over things that other people don’t find funny?

4) If you were your dog, would you want the person who you are to be your master?

5) Do you identify equally with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

6) Do you make up songs and sing them to your dog? If you don’t have a dog, do you make up songs and sing them to other people’s dogs?

7) Do you plan to give generously to charity, but only after you’re dead?

8) Is your wife glad she doesn’t understand you because she worries what it would say about her if she did?

9) Did you develop an inferiority complex because your shrink didn’t treat you for free for the privilege of writing you up in a professional journal?

10) Did you spend some of your happiest moments working in tight places like attics and crawlspaces, places that scare the bejesus out of almost everyone you know?

11) Is your idea of a really good time digging holes in your backyard in the hope of uncovering Atlantis, or at least a mastodon fossil or an arrowhead?

12) When you are through digging holes in your backyard, do you clean and oil your shovel and tuck it in for the night?

Score eight and one third points for each yes answer. Score zero for each no answer. A score of 100 means that you are smarter than God and more personable, desirable and moral than anyone else in the whole world. A score of less than 100 means that you are a hopeless twit. Put your answer in the blank following this paragraph, replacing the answer of the person who sent you the test. Only send the test to the person who sent it to you and to other people who you think are as smart, attractive, and personable as yourself. Otherwise, you risk being the subject of bitter envy. If you don’t believe that this is a valid test, you clearly scored less than 100.

My score:100

Baxter stays over

Baxter had to stay at the vet’s last night following surgery for bladder stones. We thought we could provide better care of him at home, but the vet wanted to keep him drugged, IV’d, and catheterized. Bonnie not only didn’t miss him; she seemed happy he was gone. If the situation were reversed, Baxter would have spent the evening sad and dismayed. He’s a cuddler, and would snuggle up to Bonnie if she would let him, but she gets up and walks away. Her callous disloyalty angers me, but I can hardly hash out issues with a dog. Instead, I spent a lot of time last night playing ball with her. I also gave her an empty gallon jug. She gleefully attacked it until it was barely recognizable.

Bedtime came, and I fantasized spending the night in the vet’s parking lot so as to be near Baxter. Peggy automatically got out his chicken flavor toothpaste. Baxter loves having his teeth brushed. He thinks its some kind of weird treat, so he goes into the bathroom ahead of us each night, and licks as much toothpaste as he can from the brush.

The legalities of healthcare

Peggy said that her recent fetal monitoring workshop (like all her workshops nowadays) focused heavily on avoiding lawsuits or at least making your behavior look good in the event of a lawsuit. I suppose the general public thinks that this fear of being sued keeps healthcare providers on their toes, but the truth is that working in a climate of fear creates an emotional distance between providers and their patients and hinders proper care in other ways as well. In Peggy’s specialty, for example, it results in a lot of unnecessary C-sections because doctors want to look like they did everything possible for their patients even though much of what is possible is also hazardous. C-sections, after all, are major surgery.

I suspect that some of the fear that nurses and doctors carry with them everyday (especially after they’ve been sued a time or two) partially accounts for the dehumanizing quality of modern medicine. Only those who have been sued can imagine what a nightmare it is, for only they have been through hundreds of hours of depositions, trial rehearsals, and testimony, that endlessly rehashes a few moments of time that were heartrending even if no one was in the wrong. And it can go on for years, destroying your reputation and costing you everything you own.

Going to court is like going to war in that right and wrong are irrelevant. Courts are about public relations; courts are places where the only thing that matters is how much money you have to spend on the cleverest lawyers and the most credentialed witnesses. To make things worse, really bad people have an invulnerability that really good people lack because really bad people have no ideals to lose. Really bad people never had the faith that, if you do your best, others will respect you for it and you will come out okay. Really bad people can remain unmoved in the presence of a baby that will never live a normal day; whereas really good people feel sickened and guilt-ridden even when they know it wasn’t their fault.

Medicine, regular and otherwise

Peggy and I spent Thanksgiving on the coast with Bob and Mary Pat. I was thrilled to discover that one of their other guests was a doctor because I had never socialized with anyone of higher rank than a postal worker. And even he was a retired postal worker, a fact that made me lose all interest in him just as if he had been a retired president whose only claim to fame was that he used to have the power to annihilate the world.

Since the other doctors I have seen asked for a list of medications, I began going over mine, but he changed the subject. Nonplussed, I didn’t speak to him anymore, and I folded my arms and turned my back every time he spoke to me. Only later did I reflect that he might have been a gynecologist or a pediatrician. I didn’t think of this sooner because whenever I have gone to a doctor, he or she was the right kind of doctor 100% of the time, so I naturally assumed that this would always be the case.

No matter. My regard for doctors has dropped appreciably over time. I still regard them more highly than lawyers but, like lawyers, they are often clueless, disrespectful, impatient, and more interested in my money than my welfare. Years ago, there was a public outcry for doctors to provide holistic care, but specialized medicine is where the biggest money is, so that is where most doctors have gone. No one has a doctor anymore. He has one his nose, one for his knee, and one for each of the other parts that are bothering him. If this is not good enough, if the patient also wants a doctor that cares about him, he will need yet another doctor, yet his psychiatrist will no more look at him as a whole person than will his podiatrist.

Instead of doctors, we have ever more specialized technicians. This would not be so bad if the technicians were at least effective, but it is still true that most people who go to a doctor either get better, get worse, or stay the same; and that the percentages of each are not greatly different than if they had stayed home.

With such thoughts in mind, I researched alternative therapies for my arthritis. When I met an Ayurvedist socially, I looked up his alma mater and several other colleges of Ayurveda on the Internet. I found that there is no governmentally required certification, that diplomas are issued after months instead of years, and that Ayurvedic instructors typically boast of being “skilled” in things like astrology, numerology, and homeopathy. The same is true of most alternative schools. People who consider scientific research to be unrelated or even inimical to truth scare me even more than regular doctors do.

Baxter is to have surgery tomorrow for bladder stones. I never take a dog to a vet but what I wish he or she could doctor me too. Vets take the time for a thorough examination; they act like they actually give a rip; they are not pretentious; their charges are reasonable; they provide estimates; they call you back if they are unavailable when you call them; and they take the time to explain what is wrong and what can be done to fix it. What’s more, no dog has a different vet for every part of his body, yet I see no reason to think that their care is inferior because of it. In fact, I rarely take a dog to a vet but what the vet helps the dogs; whereas I rarely take myself to a doctor but what I come away the same or worse, but in any case poorer.

Hardtack

My Manly-Man Cracker Recipe

9 cups flour (I combine a mixture of whole grain flours with a half-cup of ground flaxseed)

1/2 tsp salt

Appx 3/4-cup oil (less oil = stickier dough)

1/2-cup honey (more or less according to taste)

2+ cups warm water (warm water mixes better). Add slowly, and vary the amount as necessary. You want a dough that is uniformly moist but not so wet that it sticks to everything.

This is a big recipe and can be halved. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to make.

There aren’t too many ways to ruin a batch of crackers (1 burning them, 2 making the dough so wet that it sticks to everything, 3 making the dough so dry that it is crumbly), so feel free to experiment with the ingredients, and remember that the first two problems are correctable.

I use a Kitchen-Aid mixer, and add the ingredients in the order given. Hands also work well for mixing the ingredients, but a spoon is a hard way to go. I flour the dough as I roll it out, and I cut it into squares to save time and trouble, but you can use a drinking glass to cut it into uniform rounds if you prefer. I sometimes roll sesame seeds into the top of the dough.

Poke holes in the rolled dough with a fork (I hold one in each hand); otherwise, the crackers will have air pockets. Bake at 325°, preferably on cookie sheets that have an air space in the middle (this kind of sheet helps prevent burning the crackers on bottom. I have been tempted to bake the crackers at a lower temperature (say 125°) to try to re-create the toughness of hardtack, but have never had the patience to watch them.

Flip the crackers once or twice during baking. Move the top cookie sheet to the bottom and the bottom cookie sheet to the top when you flip them. This will help prevent burning. I suppose it takes about 25 minutes to bake a batch, but I never time it. I do check on the crackers every three to five minutes—more often as they get closer to being done.

Thick crackers naturally take longer to bake than thin ones. Thick crackers tend toward chewiness; thin crackers toward brittleness. I remove some crackers from the cookie sheet ahead of others because the ones on the edge cook faster. Don’t wait until the crackers look really brown, or they will taste burned. Spread them on a countertop to cool and harden. I freeze them but have kept them for two months without any refrigeration (when traveling).

To Portland and back

Peggy had a workshop on fetal monitoring in Portland Wednesday, so we drove up on Tuesday and stayed in a motel. She had hundreds of pages to read in preparation but, as usual, procrastinated. If I postpone something important, it is only because something else is more important, and not because I decide to clean my closet for the first time in ten years.

She passed the test only to have to come home for a dental appointment the next day. Tests, dentists, and assigned readings are three of the four things Peggy hates most. Writing is the fourth, and her “Message from the President” for the Oregon State Button Society Newsletter is due today.

We left Portland after dark during heavy rains and winds gusts of 53 miles per hour. All ten lanes on I-5 looked like one big parking lot so we took side streets, but they were little better. When we finally got out of the city, another driver took umbrage with me over who was entitled to be in a certain lane, and he followed us until I pulled over so Peggy could pee in a jar that we carry. When he veered in behind us and jumped out of his car, I thought, “Isn’t this just perfect? The wind is howling, the ruts in the interstate have turned into rivers that thunder against the fender wells, Bonnie is shivering in terror, my night vision is so bad I can hardly see the road even on a good night, the windshield wipers are working their hearts out to no avail, we just spent two hours going twenty miles; and now some fool is going to shoot us.”

I hastily left him standing in the storm and just as hastily took the next exit. Wouldn’t you know it, there was nothing but trees at the next exit, but fortunately he either didn’t see me turn or decided that killing us wasn’t worth a bad case of pneumonia. I always take a gun camping, but this experience made me vow to take it to the city as well.

Some interesting facts that I picked up on our trip:

By the third trimester of pregnancy, the embryonic fluid is nearly one-third urine.

A fetus’ heartbeat can reach 500 beats per minute, but it is very, very bad when it does.

Nurses sometimes test fetus reactivity with an instrument called a vibro-acoustic stimulator. This is basically a mechanical voicebox that sends 85 decibels of racket directly into the fetus’ ears, scaring the fetus so badly that it makes every effort to leap from the mother’s abdomen. (I told some friends about the device, and they asked with shocked expressions why nurses would do such a thing. The truth being pretty mundane, I said, “Mostly they just do it around Christmas time when they’ve had too much to drink.”)

Earth days were twenty-one hours long during Cambrian times. Due to the friction of water on the ocean floor, the days have been slowing by.002 seconds per year. Eventually, the earth will stop rotating and the same side will face the sun all the time. If the sun is on my side, I would anticipate an increase in property values. If it is not, the entire year will be like an Oregon winter.

100,000 women were raped by the Russians during the invasion of Berlin. 10,000 of them died, mostly by suicide.

Hitler died at age 56, so I’ve beaten him at least—hooray! I’ve also beaten Dan Blocker (43), John Candy (43), David Janssen (48), Steve McQueen (50), Marty Feldman (49), Michael Landon (54), and Robert Urich (55), all of whom died of natural causes. Every person I beat puts me one ahead. Ahead of what, I don’t know, but it feels good.

If, instead of driving, we had flown home from Portland in the little Cessna we once owned, we would have needed to fly 53 miles per hour into the wind merely to stand still. At that speed, we could have landed without the wheels rolling.