12-12-2010 0745 Muir Beach.
Just back from a non leashed walk with Fuji down Sunset Way…she seems to like being back, had a longish run on the beach yesterday. She definitely likes playing with the light surf waves coming ashore, intentionally galloping through them with the ball in her mouth. Her appearance is still appealingly puppy like, perhaps the slightly bowlegged sitting posture is part of it, and also her relatively large head. And her personality is certainly outgoing and engaged.
I took the Stumpjumper mountain bike out for a test ride, just along Sunset way. On the way back, going through a rough spot, I started hearing a strange intermittent noise..a kind of hissing, that I thought was perhaps a leaf brushing against the frame…but also a little reminiscent of the time when I had a weakness in the tire sidewall,a nd a large bleb was forming just before it blew out.
So I stopped. But no bleb. I rocked the bike back and forth, and the syllibant hissing went on and off…but no leaf…it sounded like an air leak, that ony happened when the tire was in a certain position….and as I turned the tire further, I could see why. A medium sized very sharp rock had poked right through, and as soon as I pulled it out, as though pulling a knife out of a major blood vessel, the tire expired with a tired little hiss…
So another thing to fix.
My computer wont see the network, but I think its something that was changed in Ethiopia,..the ISP perhaps, and needs to be cleared or changed back. Will ask Leighton if he knows how to do this.
And I can always
Well, we arrived at SFO via Jet Blue and Logan Airport Friday mid-day, and were at Muir Beach by 3 PM. The next morning, Yeshi needed transport to SFO for an 8:55 AM departure, and graciously agreed to let us use the car if we could drive her to the airport. So we set off into what is generally called ‘coastal fog night and morning clearing by mid-day’ on the radio. Unlike the London fogs that lasted up till the 60’s and mostly coal dust, our SF ‘green’ fogs are pure and gentle, cool as last nights lover, moist as tomorrows aspirations. Well, that’s what we say in the advertisements. The reality is that the whole coast is pretty much fogged in for most of the summer…a closely kept secret among those who want to rent their properties to summer tourists. It’s true, you can be out of the fog and tippling in the sun baked heat of Sonoma’s wine country after just a few minutes of car travel. But for the Seasonally Affective Disorderly among us, the continuous grey on grey against grey can become a cause of depression and even, dare I say, ennui ( Def: feelings of utter weakness and discontent brought on by boredom.)
Catching up on news and views, Yeshi and I turned off 1 onto 101 and headed South towards the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving the white people on the right in Sausalito and the black people to the left in Marin City behind. The GGB was doing its romantic thing where the top part is shrouded in fog while the bottom part is still visible. We stayed cautiously on the far right, ever reminded of Grace’s ordeal since being ambushed on the bridge. We took a wrong turn getting to Harriet’s house to drop off some supplies for the next trip. I stopped to consult Yeshi’s GPS..which was set for Zone 8 (MA, CN, etc), so kept insisting that our nearest airport was Dulles. But it all worked out, Yeshi made her plane, and afterwards I found Harriet and we talked and about writing.
Aside from those things most writing teachers seem to agree on, such as showing rather than telling, and murdering your darlings, what are the most important parts of writing? How do you write about the hard stuff, about the pain and suffering that all humans feel? Well, Joyce Carol Oates seems to know. And write it a way that shows how the experience really is, not just telling about what it was? Definitely something to work on. Harriet also distinguished between story telling and writing. The job of a writer is to help the reader experience the emotion..that’s the showing rather than the telling part. Perhaps the storyteller is more intent on getting you on the path, and leaves the emotion entirely to you? Or what do you think?
Back at Muir, yesterday being day 2 of Blitzenfarungenbewichtenluftzeugentravelzeit (loosely translated something like getting there with your time zones all messed up) we are still on East Coast time. So Sala was wanting to turn the light on and read at 5:30 yesterday morning. We are sleeping in the 10 x12 shack which is about 30 feet above the Pacific, and thus has a wonderful sound track, and the most comfortable bed in the place. (Come visit!) So I got up, and tried to get my computer on line for the next several hours; somehow the poor little thing has lost its identity and isn’t recognized by our local network. Gave up and went kayaking about 8.
There was a foot high swell running, and the tide was going out. Sun coming and going in globs and sheets of light on the basalt of Spindrift Ridge (that’s the ‘Lion Hill’ in Feng Shui terms). At least 3 red tail hawks and a couple of California vultures soaring on the early thermals, the red tail shrieks coming from everywhere as always. I paddled out along the black rock, letting the mild wave surge sweep me up against the rock and then suck back out. Starfish in blues, browns orange and red. Probably as a result not as many mussels as last year. Lots more gooseneck barnacles; I guess the starfish don’t eat them. A few gulls and a single cormorant out on bird rock, with the tide ebbing at about 2 knots. Hmm, these mussels seem to be mostly replaced by the barnacles as well. Under the high cliffs of the Muir Beach Overlook, there is a good sized sea cave..and with minimal surf I lingered inside the mouth, surging gently in and out as the seas came and went. The rock itself is nearly black, the cave soars up to architecturally impossible crannies and spires. Birds make white sconces on the walls. The gooseneck barnacles are spattered in nobbly clumps of white right up to the high tide mark. Lower down are the muscle clumps,and a purple colored soft growth that is probably a soft coral of sorts. Below that the big sea anemones and more weeds, mostly brown, but also some green and purple, yellow even. The water rushes in and disappears back into the dark with lots of gurgles and glunks. The branches of the cave are too narrow for my boat at this tide, and I know from experience I will probably get stuck if I try to go further in. So instead I just sit there for several waves, paddling to stay in place, and then let the surge take me back out into the sun lit ocean.
Yes, and on the way back in, I paddle close up to a patterned fissure in the rock that I think of as ‘Maya’s Mouth’. You may be familiar with the Maori Maui stories (Maui was towed away from his native atoll by a large fish, which when he finally landed it from South Island became North Island). Maya’s mouth would do well as a memorial to Judy Chicago..it acts as a blowhole, and yesterday the tide was just right to watch the wave surge in, experience a delicious lingering split section pause, and then have a huge misty blast come whoomping back out to cover me with spray. The relevance to Maui? Well, it seems that Maui finally learned that his father, the creator, had made him mortal. To regain immortality he would have to retrace his birth. Maya, his mom, was asleep in the woods, and Maui decided to attempt the journey. He asked the birds to keep quiet, but they found his wiggling and squirming trying to go back inside to be so comical that they started giggling loudly. Maya woke up. Whoommmmp!!!
Tirien and Ernesto came out yesterday with ALL THREE GRANDCHILDREN!! It was great watching Severin investigating horse droppings with Amalia (she wondered where the grass went) and demonstrating to Joaquin how to use the ‘Beach Blaster’, a driftwood answer to not wanting to buy gun like manufactured objects that I had made for Sev himself, at the age Joaquin is now. And they are, after all is said and done, why we are here.
So..thats the NOT of traveling for this trip. Most dispatches as the journey continues.
Alan
Friday, December 17, 2010
NOT traveling West 2010 Day 6,7
12-9-10 0550 BBA. Down to 23 on the outside thermometer, and the wind is bumping and banging around the windows. It was a cold ride to work yesterday, and yet the gear is still working…just less sweat. The cut trees are thinning out at West Oakland market..they have a very efficient setup of metal holders fastened in a grid for stability to maximize the density of their little forest.
This is what Tom, a boyhood explorer of the West Falmouth harbor wrote to me:
I remember the West Falmouth station. Can't remember when it was torn down, but recall that it was similar to the Falmouth station. The WEST FALMOUTH sign from that station moved to the WF Market, where it remained for years.
My father's family would come from Atlanta every year, by train. Atlanta to NYC, change to the Woods Hole train, get off in Falmouth. You can't do that today. Sloat would from time to time come out with a parody conductor's call from that train, which ended "Cataumet, vomit, godammit!".
You're right....West Falmouth was a busy port. Coal, cordwood, stone, and other goods came into the harbor, to be landed at various docks, the granite blocks of which are still to be seen in the various coves. I have read that when stone needed to be moved, folks would make ditches, which when flooded and frozen in winter, made low-friction icy "highways" for the cut stone.
The Cordwood Landing Road was not yet blocked off when I was a kid. You used to be able to drive over the tracks there...
From my father's "Boathouse" you could hear the Tooooot toooot toot toooooooooot of the stainless steel clad "Cape Codder" train as it went back and forth to Boston, and there were still places along the tracks where the growth was thin enough, or low enough, so you'd get a glimpse of the train as it travelled along. The Cape Codder had red velvet covered seats.
Sala and I drove to West Falmouth Harbor the other day. Several of you have used a map function to visualize the harbor (West Falmouth MA will get you there) and it does make an interesting view on satellite image. Like American Embassy employees everywhere, you can see too much of the delicate installations there…the town dock, for example. The place where Old Dock Road crosses the bike path. Nashawena Road…follow it along and it veers to the left and becomes Little Island Road. You won’t be able to make out the sign saying ‘Dead End’, which is the only clue that the road leads to a small sandy turnaround place with a bike rack. This time of year you can park, as we did. And then walk out along the soft sand between the clumps of spartina over a washed out rocky road across the narrow neck to Little Island. Or, if you are Fuji, you can run busily ahead, pouncing on suspected prey, and doing other foxlike things.
Early last summer, Robert brought by a large black plastic bag. “It’s an immature Gannet’ he informed me. “You might want to skin it”. At the time I was painting boat bottoms, but we did have the new beer and bait refrigerator in the basement, with an then un-occupied freezer. It was a very spare lobster season, but “I’m checking the pots’ is more defensible than ‘I’m pottering around being unproductive,dear’, When I cleaned out the unused lobster bait a month ago., there was the plastic bag, and so I warmed it up enough to disgorge the bird. Beautiful…twice as big as a herring gull, and far more delicate. Still speckled brown and white, without the astounding blue-green beak and black eyeshadow on white body with black wing tips of the mature bird, but gorgeous nonetheless. And wings…right up there in albatross class! Examining the one or two feathers on the leading edges at the tip, and you see how Orville and Wilbur figured out that they had to flex the wing of their flyer in order to get stability in the air. Perhaps you have watched gulls soaring along beside a boat..and noticed the tiny adjustments in the camber and attack angle of those delicate wing tip feathers. I’m remembering the introduction to that movie about New Guinea, ‘Dead Birds’, that begins something like ‘ The creation myth says that men were offered a choice; to be immortal and leave the earth to soar like birds, or to live in the world and die like animals’. Hmmm.
There were no Gannets, dead or alive when we wandered through the brushy paths and along the cold cold rocks of Little Island, but the view of Cleveland Ledge Lighthouse was great, and there was a satisfactory spray from waves breaking against the rocks set to protect the harbor entrance. Fuji was not eaten, nor did she catch to eat. We found an informal clearing in the woods with two green plastic chairs and a place for (gasp!) the very campfires that the sign told us were not allowed. Retired anarchists, perhaps.
Oh, about that Gannet. I did skin it, with the assistance of the ever interested Ursula. Her unabashed pleasure at the cleanliness of the white connective tissue inside a newly opened joint, the red of the blood, the green of the bile, and the intricacies of the nerves, arteries, and veins crossing the shoulder joint to supply the muscles of the wing were an encouragement to proceed to a full dissection (can we see the brain? Can we open the eye?) after removing the skin, applying preservative borax as we went. Later, after we had dissected the the amazingly large liver and the amazingly long larynx, located the whistle -like syrinx (birds don’t have vocal cords), and explored the air sacs (birds don’t have lungs like ours, that have to be pumped to empty), and after Ursula had gone home for a play date, I salted the skin heavily with flea powder (otherwise the mites consume the feathers in a few years) and now its spending the winter in the upper loft of Steves shop.
And we are going to California…that right, Traveling…tomorrow early morning. So I will NOT get up at 5 and will NOT make a first cup of tea, and not start up the La Pavoni ( it will be shipped, like us, by air) and I will not be writing this kind of note…until later in the day anyway.
And I will not work with Natalie for a while, after today anyhow.
Arivaderci!
This is what Tom, a boyhood explorer of the West Falmouth harbor wrote to me:
I remember the West Falmouth station. Can't remember when it was torn down, but recall that it was similar to the Falmouth station. The WEST FALMOUTH sign from that station moved to the WF Market, where it remained for years.
My father's family would come from Atlanta every year, by train. Atlanta to NYC, change to the Woods Hole train, get off in Falmouth. You can't do that today. Sloat would from time to time come out with a parody conductor's call from that train, which ended "Cataumet, vomit, godammit!".
You're right....West Falmouth was a busy port. Coal, cordwood, stone, and other goods came into the harbor, to be landed at various docks, the granite blocks of which are still to be seen in the various coves. I have read that when stone needed to be moved, folks would make ditches, which when flooded and frozen in winter, made low-friction icy "highways" for the cut stone.
The Cordwood Landing Road was not yet blocked off when I was a kid. You used to be able to drive over the tracks there...
From my father's "Boathouse" you could hear the Tooooot toooot toot toooooooooot of the stainless steel clad "Cape Codder" train as it went back and forth to Boston, and there were still places along the tracks where the growth was thin enough, or low enough, so you'd get a glimpse of the train as it travelled along. The Cape Codder had red velvet covered seats.
Sala and I drove to West Falmouth Harbor the other day. Several of you have used a map function to visualize the harbor (West Falmouth MA will get you there) and it does make an interesting view on satellite image. Like American Embassy employees everywhere, you can see too much of the delicate installations there…the town dock, for example. The place where Old Dock Road crosses the bike path. Nashawena Road…follow it along and it veers to the left and becomes Little Island Road. You won’t be able to make out the sign saying ‘Dead End’, which is the only clue that the road leads to a small sandy turnaround place with a bike rack. This time of year you can park, as we did. And then walk out along the soft sand between the clumps of spartina over a washed out rocky road across the narrow neck to Little Island. Or, if you are Fuji, you can run busily ahead, pouncing on suspected prey, and doing other foxlike things.
Early last summer, Robert brought by a large black plastic bag. “It’s an immature Gannet’ he informed me. “You might want to skin it”. At the time I was painting boat bottoms, but we did have the new beer and bait refrigerator in the basement, with an then un-occupied freezer. It was a very spare lobster season, but “I’m checking the pots’ is more defensible than ‘I’m pottering around being unproductive,dear’, When I cleaned out the unused lobster bait a month ago., there was the plastic bag, and so I warmed it up enough to disgorge the bird. Beautiful…twice as big as a herring gull, and far more delicate. Still speckled brown and white, without the astounding blue-green beak and black eyeshadow on white body with black wing tips of the mature bird, but gorgeous nonetheless. And wings…right up there in albatross class! Examining the one or two feathers on the leading edges at the tip, and you see how Orville and Wilbur figured out that they had to flex the wing of their flyer in order to get stability in the air. Perhaps you have watched gulls soaring along beside a boat..and noticed the tiny adjustments in the camber and attack angle of those delicate wing tip feathers. I’m remembering the introduction to that movie about New Guinea, ‘Dead Birds’, that begins something like ‘ The creation myth says that men were offered a choice; to be immortal and leave the earth to soar like birds, or to live in the world and die like animals’. Hmmm.
There were no Gannets, dead or alive when we wandered through the brushy paths and along the cold cold rocks of Little Island, but the view of Cleveland Ledge Lighthouse was great, and there was a satisfactory spray from waves breaking against the rocks set to protect the harbor entrance. Fuji was not eaten, nor did she catch to eat. We found an informal clearing in the woods with two green plastic chairs and a place for (gasp!) the very campfires that the sign told us were not allowed. Retired anarchists, perhaps.
Oh, about that Gannet. I did skin it, with the assistance of the ever interested Ursula. Her unabashed pleasure at the cleanliness of the white connective tissue inside a newly opened joint, the red of the blood, the green of the bile, and the intricacies of the nerves, arteries, and veins crossing the shoulder joint to supply the muscles of the wing were an encouragement to proceed to a full dissection (can we see the brain? Can we open the eye?) after removing the skin, applying preservative borax as we went. Later, after we had dissected the the amazingly large liver and the amazingly long larynx, located the whistle -like syrinx (birds don’t have vocal cords), and explored the air sacs (birds don’t have lungs like ours, that have to be pumped to empty), and after Ursula had gone home for a play date, I salted the skin heavily with flea powder (otherwise the mites consume the feathers in a few years) and now its spending the winter in the upper loft of Steves shop.
And we are going to California…that right, Traveling…tomorrow early morning. So I will NOT get up at 5 and will NOT make a first cup of tea, and not start up the La Pavoni ( it will be shipped, like us, by air) and I will not be writing this kind of note…until later in the day anyway.
And I will not work with Natalie for a while, after today anyhow.
Arivaderci!
NOT traveling West 2010 Day 5
12-7-2010 0710 BBA. Yes, and if this were Weds or Thursday during a regular week here, I would be out on the bikepath by now. As it is, I am sitting here as the ancient hot water radiators in this wonderfully settled house warm up, against the falling temperatures outside. The tree branches are tossing around, and the windows bang in their frames. Fuji has come downstairs to be greeted, scratched, and petted, and has now gone to curl up on top of one of said radiators, her favorite place with a view of her domain of living room and side yard. And so its time to write.
I am pretty sure West Falmouth was a station stop, because there is a big parking lot right beside the bike path. Old Dock Road crosses at right angles, and the inner harbor is within a few hundred feet. Its one of the nicest waterfronts around, pretty much just spartina grass, fiddler crabs mud and sand, with small boats tied to home made moorings. The harbor is shallow and complex, not attractive to commerce. But the names, such as Firewood Landing, suggest a more active past. West Falmouth market, like the library and the Quaker Meeting House down the road past the Funeral Parlor,has been here for some time. Just now, the front entrance of the market, which sits right beside 28A, is clogged with cut Christmas trees. Before it was pumpkins, but during the summer it’s kept clear for the increasing number of people who come for the muffins, scones, bread, and local produce. They also do fancy baked stuff; haven’t tried that but it looks tempting. No, I am a muffin guy, or if they aren’t out yet or all gone, perhaps a scone. There is a ding bell on the front door, and in the back a very full service sandwich making delicatessen that is as good as any in Brooklyn. Well, I admit they don’t do Biali’s, but who does, outside of NYC?
Coffee is good too, I guess, but I generally bring that with me, taking the second pull from the La Pavoni that gives Sala her morning cuppa. I get tachyarrythmias if I do more than a cup of caffeine, unless I am doing work that can use it more wisely, such as kayaking all day or the like.
By the time I get to West Falmouth I am usually a bit sweaty, so it feels OK to go back out into the cold.
From West Falmouth, the path runs behind back yards, crosses a few smaller roads, and then makes a boundary to the meadows of the Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary. A good place to go on autopilot.
So, Cape Cod, and Sandwich on Massachusetts Bay at the base of the cape in particular, seems to be where dissidents often ended up in those pre revolutionary Puritan colonial days of 1660 and on. Quakers were numerous enough and their missionaries were visible enough to receive a lot of the persecution…which of course the Puritans had internalized from their own oppression in England. They had, of course, made it a legal requirement for men to go to church..their church. But the early Quakers kept on quaking, and some of the oldest ongoing Friends Meeting Houses are on the Cape, one right next to the bike bath in West Falmouth. Yes, and what about cranberries? They really do grow wild on the Cape, but most are in commercial bogs. Our friend John grows; the Cape seems to have more than its share of strong intelligent men who insist on engaging in marginally profitable activities such as fishing, cabinet making, and cranberry farming. Hearing him describe the details of ice avoidance, flooding, harvesting dry and wet, and the like make Pinot Noir seem easy. Think about that when you open that can of cranberry sauce.
Crossing the bog now; its after the harvest, but the leaves are reddish, a faint remembrance of how the bog looked flooded, with the red glow of the myriad red berries floating on the surface, lit up by the setting sun. Yes, and most bogs have their resident giant snapping turtles…met one from this bog last spring, as she looked for a good egg laying sand bank.
After the cranberry bog and a small horse stable, I am thinking of getting there, and try to pick up the pace. For me that means shifting to abdominal breathing, and trying to keep my focus on peddling in a circle rather than a square. I don’t have clips, so this is more a mental exercise than a physical reality, but it feels stronger. I past a privately installed War Dog Memorial (consisting of a antique fire hydrant and a statue of a wistful dog), the last overpass, and then the backs of a small strip Mall. I actually turn off at Silver Lounge, a local revered watering place, just before the real end of the bike path. But its enough…its more than enough. Its great!.
Tomorrow…back to work.
Aloha
Alan
I am pretty sure West Falmouth was a station stop, because there is a big parking lot right beside the bike path. Old Dock Road crosses at right angles, and the inner harbor is within a few hundred feet. Its one of the nicest waterfronts around, pretty much just spartina grass, fiddler crabs mud and sand, with small boats tied to home made moorings. The harbor is shallow and complex, not attractive to commerce. But the names, such as Firewood Landing, suggest a more active past. West Falmouth market, like the library and the Quaker Meeting House down the road past the Funeral Parlor,has been here for some time. Just now, the front entrance of the market, which sits right beside 28A, is clogged with cut Christmas trees. Before it was pumpkins, but during the summer it’s kept clear for the increasing number of people who come for the muffins, scones, bread, and local produce. They also do fancy baked stuff; haven’t tried that but it looks tempting. No, I am a muffin guy, or if they aren’t out yet or all gone, perhaps a scone. There is a ding bell on the front door, and in the back a very full service sandwich making delicatessen that is as good as any in Brooklyn. Well, I admit they don’t do Biali’s, but who does, outside of NYC?
Coffee is good too, I guess, but I generally bring that with me, taking the second pull from the La Pavoni that gives Sala her morning cuppa. I get tachyarrythmias if I do more than a cup of caffeine, unless I am doing work that can use it more wisely, such as kayaking all day or the like.
By the time I get to West Falmouth I am usually a bit sweaty, so it feels OK to go back out into the cold.
From West Falmouth, the path runs behind back yards, crosses a few smaller roads, and then makes a boundary to the meadows of the Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary. A good place to go on autopilot.
So, Cape Cod, and Sandwich on Massachusetts Bay at the base of the cape in particular, seems to be where dissidents often ended up in those pre revolutionary Puritan colonial days of 1660 and on. Quakers were numerous enough and their missionaries were visible enough to receive a lot of the persecution…which of course the Puritans had internalized from their own oppression in England. They had, of course, made it a legal requirement for men to go to church..their church. But the early Quakers kept on quaking, and some of the oldest ongoing Friends Meeting Houses are on the Cape, one right next to the bike bath in West Falmouth. Yes, and what about cranberries? They really do grow wild on the Cape, but most are in commercial bogs. Our friend John grows; the Cape seems to have more than its share of strong intelligent men who insist on engaging in marginally profitable activities such as fishing, cabinet making, and cranberry farming. Hearing him describe the details of ice avoidance, flooding, harvesting dry and wet, and the like make Pinot Noir seem easy. Think about that when you open that can of cranberry sauce.
Crossing the bog now; its after the harvest, but the leaves are reddish, a faint remembrance of how the bog looked flooded, with the red glow of the myriad red berries floating on the surface, lit up by the setting sun. Yes, and most bogs have their resident giant snapping turtles…met one from this bog last spring, as she looked for a good egg laying sand bank.
After the cranberry bog and a small horse stable, I am thinking of getting there, and try to pick up the pace. For me that means shifting to abdominal breathing, and trying to keep my focus on peddling in a circle rather than a square. I don’t have clips, so this is more a mental exercise than a physical reality, but it feels stronger. I past a privately installed War Dog Memorial (consisting of a antique fire hydrant and a statue of a wistful dog), the last overpass, and then the backs of a small strip Mall. I actually turn off at Silver Lounge, a local revered watering place, just before the real end of the bike path. But its enough…its more than enough. Its great!.
Tomorrow…back to work.
Aloha
Alan
Thursday, December 16, 2010
NOT traveling West 2010, Day 4
12-6-2010 0615 BBA The Pleasures of the Bike Path. Sala frequently has to assure me that; No, its not the same thing as sitting. But there is a walking meditation, which she practices and teachers, and perhaps the time on the bike is somewhat like that. Or perhaps for those of us with an extreme version of monkey mind, the physical activity of pedaling hard or running or even kayaking on calm water is helpful as it floods the body with those calming endogenous chemicals.
Whatever the case, the bike path trip always has at least some element of the reflective. And reflection, or at least the aspiration to a reflective professional practice, is the aim of a lot of my thought these days.
Of course there is nothing new about all this. The Flexner report, back in the dawn of the 20th century, was a scathing indictment of the state of American medical education. No system, no accountability, no coherence and most of all, no science. Published by the Carnegie Institute, it was a fox in the slovenly hen house of medical education at the time. And, some think, led to the emphasis on scientific (and thus distant, cold, impersonal ) medicine that is now criticized in the most recent Carnegie report.
When in the late 1900’s medical consumers were asked what kind of doctors they wanted, many of their desires were for more communication, more comprehensive thinking; a kinder, gentler and more available doctor. The recently published report ( ) provides some ideas on how to get there. And at the heart of this is the idea of reflective practice.
My own thinking is influenced by mentors like Malcolm Knowles, George Lakoff, and Donald Schoen. What kind of a Venn diagram brings these guys together? Reflection. Knowles’s ideas on adult education are my basis for believing that its possible to learn without being taught in lectures. That students can learn..a central requirement for anyone venturing into the whole field of Inquiry Directed Learning. Lakoff, still stirring up trouble on the Berkeley Campus, is the one who helped crystallize my own idea of how individuals in groups project their thoughts..that we put our conceptualization into a frame (the ‘lens’ alternative has never seemed right to me) which we construct out of mind, and that our minds are inextricably embodied..plagued and blessed with all the joys and woes of sensate existence. Forget the apparent assurance of the lecture hall; lets get going into the messy guts of the world as it is! And Donald Schoen (working with Chris Argyris of course), who worked out how individuals within organizations should use an ‘action/reflection’ model, and that organizations should support and cultivate such reflective practice as an essential part of the organizations mission, and function.
Now the bike path doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes its just grunting against the NW headwind that brings cold air down from Canada. Sometimes its dodging joggers and learners. But on many a fall or winter day, and particularly coming home at night, it can be host to reflection. The gear is all working well..body suit, double mittens, hood, waterproof top keep me somewhere between sweating and freezing. And the bike, although old style with the drop handlebars and very heavy cost only $100 and can get up to enough speed to give the illusion of going fast. Then, as anyone who bicycles knows, its just a matter of round and round and round and round. The bike path is pretty flat…being an old train track…and pretty smooth. Going northeast along the shore, there’s little wind today and this early no traffic at all. Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard is clear enough to make out individual houses. As it Falmouth Heights Casino up ahead. Rock jetties constructed to trap sand stick out into the water, and the fishermen of summer are all gone to home. The sun is rising way South, as we move towards the longest day. Memorial benches, remembering someone who perhaps once walked here, are getting more numerous each year. Up ahead is the first level crossing, so I start looking along the road, peering through the fragmites that grow along Herring Run Pond. Nice swans. Looks like no cars coming, so I slow, but do not follow the instructions to stop and dismount. Then I’m over the crossing, and the path is curving towards the left. It will follow the shore towards the Bourne end of the Cape Cod Canal, where an ancient railroad bridge is still doing active duty. There have been muskrat lodges in the ponds, and there’s another alongside me now. Sometimes the damp trails of the rats as they cross the path from the big pond to the small are visible, but not this morning. But the lodge is percepitably bigger than it was. I picture the happy rats luxuriating in their warm home. It’s a rat’s life.
Now the path crosses another road, with an osprey nesting platform close by. We’re getting to a long stretch with backyards on one side and nature preserve on the other. Back onto autopilot, and reflect a bit.
Imagine how nice Woods Hole would be if most people arrived by train. If we had somehow avoided this rush to get into private cars and instead agreed to develop mass transit. Perhaps then the roles would be reversed, and the bike path would be in place of the main highway, the railroad serving most of the transport needs. The whole parking lot would be a reception area, a place to relax for a moment before moving on to explore the town or get on the boat to Marthas Vineyard. Plenty of hungry and acquisitive tourists to keep businesses flourishing. A place for local artisans to sell their stuff. Ahhh!
Up ahead are The Lumps. A place where trees grow close enough to be uprooting the smooth macadam of the bikepath into cracks and heaves. Have to pay more attention to stay on course. And then theres the level acrossing of the main road, and beyond it the path sweeps behind the Lumber yard and across another street before coming alongside the old Station. Its grown up with 3 inch thick trees on the tracks now, but the other side is a working bus station. A shadow of its former self.
We’re going alongside the town now, through huge parking lots that are empty now, but jam packed with cars in the summer high season. The woods here are broken by businesses and the hospitals parking lots. Then the old railway sweeps left, cleaving to the shore but back from it a bit, and on both sides the glacial remains become evident. Vernal ponds at the bottom of dells left by melting blocks of ice. Rock walls gathered as settlers created usable fields. The Sippiwissett road overpasses high above, each car making crunkeling noises on the loose boards of the roadway. On the right there is the first glimpse of Buzzards Bay, a perfect little arm of marsh, with a central clear lead of water, blue against the sky that has cleared of clouds now. More woods, and the campground on the left, the quickly dug and graded dirt road access to various campsites brutally clear now that the leaves are gone. Two years ago I met two coyotes here at night..or rather I saw them as they continued on their way. The bikepath sags down a bit, and then swoops up a bit, and under another road, and then there is a long straight downhill stretch that opens up in a vivid flash to open marsh on both sides, with the sand dunes of Sippiwissett Beach on the left, and Buzzards Bay tumbling with waves beyond. Remants of quahog clam shells that the gulls have dropped to break open and eat. Coyote scat, piled defiantly in the middle of the macadam. The big summer houses to the right that abut the marsh are mostly closed, but at night there will be at least one light along this mile long stretch. A kingfisher rattles off to somewhere else. I let my gaze drift out across the reddish brown of the spartina, and along the black cutbanks that border the water leads. A few ducks..perhaps mallards. No wading birds today; do they migrate? Very little cattails..its mostly fragmites now. Too bad; cattail are the baseplant of a lot of marsh ecosystems. The wind gusts, and again I remember my job is to continue pedaling. Up ahead, I’ll turn off and visit the West Falmouth Market for a muffin
Whatever the case, the bike path trip always has at least some element of the reflective. And reflection, or at least the aspiration to a reflective professional practice, is the aim of a lot of my thought these days.
Of course there is nothing new about all this. The Flexner report, back in the dawn of the 20th century, was a scathing indictment of the state of American medical education. No system, no accountability, no coherence and most of all, no science. Published by the Carnegie Institute, it was a fox in the slovenly hen house of medical education at the time. And, some think, led to the emphasis on scientific (and thus distant, cold, impersonal ) medicine that is now criticized in the most recent Carnegie report.
When in the late 1900’s medical consumers were asked what kind of doctors they wanted, many of their desires were for more communication, more comprehensive thinking; a kinder, gentler and more available doctor. The recently published report ( ) provides some ideas on how to get there. And at the heart of this is the idea of reflective practice.
My own thinking is influenced by mentors like Malcolm Knowles, George Lakoff, and Donald Schoen. What kind of a Venn diagram brings these guys together? Reflection. Knowles’s ideas on adult education are my basis for believing that its possible to learn without being taught in lectures. That students can learn..a central requirement for anyone venturing into the whole field of Inquiry Directed Learning. Lakoff, still stirring up trouble on the Berkeley Campus, is the one who helped crystallize my own idea of how individuals in groups project their thoughts..that we put our conceptualization into a frame (the ‘lens’ alternative has never seemed right to me) which we construct out of mind, and that our minds are inextricably embodied..plagued and blessed with all the joys and woes of sensate existence. Forget the apparent assurance of the lecture hall; lets get going into the messy guts of the world as it is! And Donald Schoen (working with Chris Argyris of course), who worked out how individuals within organizations should use an ‘action/reflection’ model, and that organizations should support and cultivate such reflective practice as an essential part of the organizations mission, and function.
Now the bike path doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes its just grunting against the NW headwind that brings cold air down from Canada. Sometimes its dodging joggers and learners. But on many a fall or winter day, and particularly coming home at night, it can be host to reflection. The gear is all working well..body suit, double mittens, hood, waterproof top keep me somewhere between sweating and freezing. And the bike, although old style with the drop handlebars and very heavy cost only $100 and can get up to enough speed to give the illusion of going fast. Then, as anyone who bicycles knows, its just a matter of round and round and round and round. The bike path is pretty flat…being an old train track…and pretty smooth. Going northeast along the shore, there’s little wind today and this early no traffic at all. Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard is clear enough to make out individual houses. As it Falmouth Heights Casino up ahead. Rock jetties constructed to trap sand stick out into the water, and the fishermen of summer are all gone to home. The sun is rising way South, as we move towards the longest day. Memorial benches, remembering someone who perhaps once walked here, are getting more numerous each year. Up ahead is the first level crossing, so I start looking along the road, peering through the fragmites that grow along Herring Run Pond. Nice swans. Looks like no cars coming, so I slow, but do not follow the instructions to stop and dismount. Then I’m over the crossing, and the path is curving towards the left. It will follow the shore towards the Bourne end of the Cape Cod Canal, where an ancient railroad bridge is still doing active duty. There have been muskrat lodges in the ponds, and there’s another alongside me now. Sometimes the damp trails of the rats as they cross the path from the big pond to the small are visible, but not this morning. But the lodge is percepitably bigger than it was. I picture the happy rats luxuriating in their warm home. It’s a rat’s life.
Now the path crosses another road, with an osprey nesting platform close by. We’re getting to a long stretch with backyards on one side and nature preserve on the other. Back onto autopilot, and reflect a bit.
Imagine how nice Woods Hole would be if most people arrived by train. If we had somehow avoided this rush to get into private cars and instead agreed to develop mass transit. Perhaps then the roles would be reversed, and the bike path would be in place of the main highway, the railroad serving most of the transport needs. The whole parking lot would be a reception area, a place to relax for a moment before moving on to explore the town or get on the boat to Marthas Vineyard. Plenty of hungry and acquisitive tourists to keep businesses flourishing. A place for local artisans to sell their stuff. Ahhh!
Up ahead are The Lumps. A place where trees grow close enough to be uprooting the smooth macadam of the bikepath into cracks and heaves. Have to pay more attention to stay on course. And then theres the level acrossing of the main road, and beyond it the path sweeps behind the Lumber yard and across another street before coming alongside the old Station. Its grown up with 3 inch thick trees on the tracks now, but the other side is a working bus station. A shadow of its former self.
We’re going alongside the town now, through huge parking lots that are empty now, but jam packed with cars in the summer high season. The woods here are broken by businesses and the hospitals parking lots. Then the old railway sweeps left, cleaving to the shore but back from it a bit, and on both sides the glacial remains become evident. Vernal ponds at the bottom of dells left by melting blocks of ice. Rock walls gathered as settlers created usable fields. The Sippiwissett road overpasses high above, each car making crunkeling noises on the loose boards of the roadway. On the right there is the first glimpse of Buzzards Bay, a perfect little arm of marsh, with a central clear lead of water, blue against the sky that has cleared of clouds now. More woods, and the campground on the left, the quickly dug and graded dirt road access to various campsites brutally clear now that the leaves are gone. Two years ago I met two coyotes here at night..or rather I saw them as they continued on their way. The bikepath sags down a bit, and then swoops up a bit, and under another road, and then there is a long straight downhill stretch that opens up in a vivid flash to open marsh on both sides, with the sand dunes of Sippiwissett Beach on the left, and Buzzards Bay tumbling with waves beyond. Remants of quahog clam shells that the gulls have dropped to break open and eat. Coyote scat, piled defiantly in the middle of the macadam. The big summer houses to the right that abut the marsh are mostly closed, but at night there will be at least one light along this mile long stretch. A kingfisher rattles off to somewhere else. I let my gaze drift out across the reddish brown of the spartina, and along the black cutbanks that border the water leads. A few ducks..perhaps mallards. No wading birds today; do they migrate? Very little cattails..its mostly fragmites now. Too bad; cattail are the baseplant of a lot of marsh ecosystems. The wind gusts, and again I remember my job is to continue pedaling. Up ahead, I’ll turn off and visit the West Falmouth Market for a muffin
NOT traveling West 2010, Day 3
12-5(for real)-2010 1124 BBA.
The bike path can wait, but the experience of kayaking this morning cannot. It’s watery noisiness and motion shoulders and jostles into my memory even while I sit in Coffee O talking to Christine about her writing, as I sit in warmth and on a solid 4 legs on a solid floor on sandbar Earth. Out there, it’s a different movement every moment, and any might take the boat beyond my ability to react with a half push of the paddle here, a full brace there.
Well, that’s a bit of hyperbole; a full overhead brace is where the breaking wave is towering over you, and you lean into it, lean on your waveside paddle, and rather than trying to escape from the coiling rearing cataclysm of energy that is about to roll you over and over and leave you upside down hanging out of your little plastic boat…rather than that, you must go towards the wave, put your paddle forcibly into the wave, welcome the wave, let the wave roll over you and THEN brace down, HARD, don’t hold back, lean into it, commit yourself, really HARD!! If you do that, you feel the surge throwing you away, but you have already begun to lean against it. The roof of foam and water caves in, and you are suddenly deep in a mixture of air and water, sparkling and roaring in you ears, and then amazingly your head is out in the air again, and as you sweep your paddle towards the stern the boat amazingly pivots and whoooo!!, you are heading downhill, with that hissing noise that tells you that this time, you lucked out, you have somehow found that place in the unlimited energy of the ocean, and are out of control in any larger sense, but for the moment, balanced and able to maneuver, to enjoy the rush of traveling with all that watery wisdom. You are surfing!
No, that didn’t happen today, but it didn’t need to. The tide was up into the boathouse, over the dock, and I sloshed through several inches of water to get my kayak down from its rack, and get into it, with the sprayskirt on. These days, I put on all the gear back at home, and ride to the boathouse that way. There was ice on the small ponds, but not on the flooded marsh. A cloudy moody complex sky to the East, with the sun breaking bold out of the gloom, and the light waxing and waning on the brown spartina grass.
There was more wind than I had thought, and it sailed me towards the channel between Ram Island and Pensance Point. I pulled my thumbs back out of the gloves, and clutched the chemical hand warmer…its thumbs that limit my cold tolerance when I am wearing mittens. I think my left glove is less than waterproof these days. The bow of the kayak approaches the subtle line of ripples that demarcates the flooding current, and I move the rudder a bit to keep the boat heading out…with the wind against the current, we sail across the flow. Time to set up and paddle for real.
The flow of water between Ram and Pensance is about 100 yards wide, and although flat, it’s billowing and gushing, bulging literally above the surface as the water flows over uneven sands about 7 feel below. The boat bumps and jinks as it encounters these little discontinuities. I head across at an angle, and come into the backwater behind Pensance, Next comes the narrow channel between Devils Foot Island and Pensance, where I know the current will pick up to about 6 knots. I can see it; there is a visible drop off, just like the rapids in a river. I have to come out of the backwater eddy in a rush, and paddle hard for about 25 yards. The current will push me against the shallowing rocky shore, and I have the rudder up, but will have to remember not to get too close, or I might break a paddle, and at the very least would lose power. Paddle, paddle, and the distance to the eddy line shortens. The noise of the water grows. Last stroke and the bow hits..but the line is good, and the boat hardly wavers, and I have about 50 strokes before I run out of energy to make it through. I focus on keeping the bow perfectly into the current, and take a quick glance. Still moving relative to the shore…but just barely. The water, clear of plankton and thus almost transparent, flashes by, the rocks standing almost still under it. Shift to abdominal breathing, and one breath per stroke. It’s clear that I will make it, as I come up into the next backwater, this one behind the tip of Pensance itself, where it sticks out towards Nonamessett a half mile away, and into the main current. I slow my stroke, puff a bit. The wind is blocked by the rocky point, built up with boulders that armor it against the waves. Ahead, very close, the water of the main current is racing noisily by. But I know that I can sneak very close to shore, and if I made that part before, I can make this. The trick here is to not let the 2 foot breaking waves wash the kayak into the rocks and crack it. So my next move, getting up to speed and slicing the bow into the 3 foot space between two big boulders, has to be just exactly right. In calm weather, with no flood tide, it’s no big deal, but with this tide a mistake could flip me right over. Paddle, paddle, paddle NOW HARD, HARD, HARD and within a dozen strokes, it’s OK, I will make this point, too! Within a few more breaths, I can back off to about 40/min, and still make headway against the wind that is now sweeping right in across Buzzards Bay and piling up sizeable waves.
On a flood tide, the water in Buzzards Bay, which opens to the South, is trying to flood into Vineyard Sound, which is a little North and East. This is what generates the 5-8 knot currents in The Hole. But because of the uneven bottom, the shallow depth, and the several ledges and rocky islands, the overall result of flowing water and wind is far from obvious. For example, in the middle of The Hole, there is a current on the Ebb tide that reverses and flows in the Flood direction! On this Flood tide, with the water level so high I can’t even see any rocks on Pine Island or Red Ledge, there will be actual holes, where the net force of the water is downwards, just as there are on rivers. These are big enough to hold the boat, although not to actually suck it down. And they usually are spinning, which is not recommended as a way of staying upright. So as I turn the bow out and into the current, I am for the first time in days, spending every moment of this time RIGHT HERE. There is no time or space to be anywhere else. Although I am not paddling hard, I need to be ready for a sudden movement, an unexpected turn or lurch. The trick will be to keep going with the water, but to not quite let it have its way, which might require flipping. In my little surf boat, in California, without rocks and reefs and in the right gear, it’s fine to flip…I am pretty confident of my ability to roll back up again. But here, with a bigger kayak and in this river of water, I am less sure, and definitely do not want to have to swim out of the boat and then try to get it bailed out and righted before I get so cold I can’t do the manual things this all requires. The water, driven into waves by the wind, and piled up by the current, slaps at the side of the boat. Spray on my face. That damm left glove is definitely leaking, and my left thumb is completely numb. I paddle across, towards the Nonamessett side, to position the kayak out in the main current. I want to pass the island that holds the main channel marker on the left, and then zip along the rip line that demarcates the underwater edge of Middle Ledge. Now I am coming down on the green can that marks the side of the channel. Whoa, the water must be moving at close to 7 knots…the noise of it piling past the tethered marker is a roar, although this new bouy is no longer pulled under like the old one would be sometimes. When that happened to Robert, he stayed with the boat and was rescued way down off Falmouth…cold, but still alive. But that was summer.
I pass the rock island, and it seems as though I am flying. The water is flat right here, and magically huge rocks loom up like whales as I sweep over them. I keep paddling, to have a little momentum relative to the water to let myself maneuver to avoid the biggest holes and boils as the water pours over rocks on the bottom. Pine Island is completely covered in water…only the one large rock at this end shows. The Middle Ledge is a patch of bouncing roiling water…if the wind was against the current there would be 3 foot high standing waves, but luckily its behind me, pushing me and the water even faster but keeping the waves below 2 feet. No sign of any seals; no place for them to rest and who wants to try to fish in this maelstrom? I’m already passing the other end of Pine Island, and start angling across the next rip, off the side of Red Ledge. Ahead, the Island Home ferry boat looms up into the channel. But I will pass well in front of them, going at this speed.
And now its all about bumping and sliding, tilting and leaning, as the boat gets slapped around by waves and the wind. The sun is fully out, the glare making everything that much more exciting. There are whirlpools, too, that swing the boat crazily from side to side. And what about that ferry? Then, with a final slap and a splash of wet spray across my face, I am through the current, and paddling along Juniper Point. Time to point the bow West and slog back against the wind and the current in the safety of the harbor. And deal with that numb left thumb.
besos
Alan
The bike path can wait, but the experience of kayaking this morning cannot. It’s watery noisiness and motion shoulders and jostles into my memory even while I sit in Coffee O talking to Christine about her writing, as I sit in warmth and on a solid 4 legs on a solid floor on sandbar Earth. Out there, it’s a different movement every moment, and any might take the boat beyond my ability to react with a half push of the paddle here, a full brace there.
Well, that’s a bit of hyperbole; a full overhead brace is where the breaking wave is towering over you, and you lean into it, lean on your waveside paddle, and rather than trying to escape from the coiling rearing cataclysm of energy that is about to roll you over and over and leave you upside down hanging out of your little plastic boat…rather than that, you must go towards the wave, put your paddle forcibly into the wave, welcome the wave, let the wave roll over you and THEN brace down, HARD, don’t hold back, lean into it, commit yourself, really HARD!! If you do that, you feel the surge throwing you away, but you have already begun to lean against it. The roof of foam and water caves in, and you are suddenly deep in a mixture of air and water, sparkling and roaring in you ears, and then amazingly your head is out in the air again, and as you sweep your paddle towards the stern the boat amazingly pivots and whoooo!!, you are heading downhill, with that hissing noise that tells you that this time, you lucked out, you have somehow found that place in the unlimited energy of the ocean, and are out of control in any larger sense, but for the moment, balanced and able to maneuver, to enjoy the rush of traveling with all that watery wisdom. You are surfing!
No, that didn’t happen today, but it didn’t need to. The tide was up into the boathouse, over the dock, and I sloshed through several inches of water to get my kayak down from its rack, and get into it, with the sprayskirt on. These days, I put on all the gear back at home, and ride to the boathouse that way. There was ice on the small ponds, but not on the flooded marsh. A cloudy moody complex sky to the East, with the sun breaking bold out of the gloom, and the light waxing and waning on the brown spartina grass.
There was more wind than I had thought, and it sailed me towards the channel between Ram Island and Pensance Point. I pulled my thumbs back out of the gloves, and clutched the chemical hand warmer…its thumbs that limit my cold tolerance when I am wearing mittens. I think my left glove is less than waterproof these days. The bow of the kayak approaches the subtle line of ripples that demarcates the flooding current, and I move the rudder a bit to keep the boat heading out…with the wind against the current, we sail across the flow. Time to set up and paddle for real.
The flow of water between Ram and Pensance is about 100 yards wide, and although flat, it’s billowing and gushing, bulging literally above the surface as the water flows over uneven sands about 7 feel below. The boat bumps and jinks as it encounters these little discontinuities. I head across at an angle, and come into the backwater behind Pensance, Next comes the narrow channel between Devils Foot Island and Pensance, where I know the current will pick up to about 6 knots. I can see it; there is a visible drop off, just like the rapids in a river. I have to come out of the backwater eddy in a rush, and paddle hard for about 25 yards. The current will push me against the shallowing rocky shore, and I have the rudder up, but will have to remember not to get too close, or I might break a paddle, and at the very least would lose power. Paddle, paddle, and the distance to the eddy line shortens. The noise of the water grows. Last stroke and the bow hits..but the line is good, and the boat hardly wavers, and I have about 50 strokes before I run out of energy to make it through. I focus on keeping the bow perfectly into the current, and take a quick glance. Still moving relative to the shore…but just barely. The water, clear of plankton and thus almost transparent, flashes by, the rocks standing almost still under it. Shift to abdominal breathing, and one breath per stroke. It’s clear that I will make it, as I come up into the next backwater, this one behind the tip of Pensance itself, where it sticks out towards Nonamessett a half mile away, and into the main current. I slow my stroke, puff a bit. The wind is blocked by the rocky point, built up with boulders that armor it against the waves. Ahead, very close, the water of the main current is racing noisily by. But I know that I can sneak very close to shore, and if I made that part before, I can make this. The trick here is to not let the 2 foot breaking waves wash the kayak into the rocks and crack it. So my next move, getting up to speed and slicing the bow into the 3 foot space between two big boulders, has to be just exactly right. In calm weather, with no flood tide, it’s no big deal, but with this tide a mistake could flip me right over. Paddle, paddle, paddle NOW HARD, HARD, HARD and within a dozen strokes, it’s OK, I will make this point, too! Within a few more breaths, I can back off to about 40/min, and still make headway against the wind that is now sweeping right in across Buzzards Bay and piling up sizeable waves.
On a flood tide, the water in Buzzards Bay, which opens to the South, is trying to flood into Vineyard Sound, which is a little North and East. This is what generates the 5-8 knot currents in The Hole. But because of the uneven bottom, the shallow depth, and the several ledges and rocky islands, the overall result of flowing water and wind is far from obvious. For example, in the middle of The Hole, there is a current on the Ebb tide that reverses and flows in the Flood direction! On this Flood tide, with the water level so high I can’t even see any rocks on Pine Island or Red Ledge, there will be actual holes, where the net force of the water is downwards, just as there are on rivers. These are big enough to hold the boat, although not to actually suck it down. And they usually are spinning, which is not recommended as a way of staying upright. So as I turn the bow out and into the current, I am for the first time in days, spending every moment of this time RIGHT HERE. There is no time or space to be anywhere else. Although I am not paddling hard, I need to be ready for a sudden movement, an unexpected turn or lurch. The trick will be to keep going with the water, but to not quite let it have its way, which might require flipping. In my little surf boat, in California, without rocks and reefs and in the right gear, it’s fine to flip…I am pretty confident of my ability to roll back up again. But here, with a bigger kayak and in this river of water, I am less sure, and definitely do not want to have to swim out of the boat and then try to get it bailed out and righted before I get so cold I can’t do the manual things this all requires. The water, driven into waves by the wind, and piled up by the current, slaps at the side of the boat. Spray on my face. That damm left glove is definitely leaking, and my left thumb is completely numb. I paddle across, towards the Nonamessett side, to position the kayak out in the main current. I want to pass the island that holds the main channel marker on the left, and then zip along the rip line that demarcates the underwater edge of Middle Ledge. Now I am coming down on the green can that marks the side of the channel. Whoa, the water must be moving at close to 7 knots…the noise of it piling past the tethered marker is a roar, although this new bouy is no longer pulled under like the old one would be sometimes. When that happened to Robert, he stayed with the boat and was rescued way down off Falmouth…cold, but still alive. But that was summer.
I pass the rock island, and it seems as though I am flying. The water is flat right here, and magically huge rocks loom up like whales as I sweep over them. I keep paddling, to have a little momentum relative to the water to let myself maneuver to avoid the biggest holes and boils as the water pours over rocks on the bottom. Pine Island is completely covered in water…only the one large rock at this end shows. The Middle Ledge is a patch of bouncing roiling water…if the wind was against the current there would be 3 foot high standing waves, but luckily its behind me, pushing me and the water even faster but keeping the waves below 2 feet. No sign of any seals; no place for them to rest and who wants to try to fish in this maelstrom? I’m already passing the other end of Pine Island, and start angling across the next rip, off the side of Red Ledge. Ahead, the Island Home ferry boat looms up into the channel. But I will pass well in front of them, going at this speed.
And now its all about bumping and sliding, tilting and leaning, as the boat gets slapped around by waves and the wind. The sun is fully out, the glare making everything that much more exciting. There are whirlpools, too, that swing the boat crazily from side to side. And what about that ferry? Then, with a final slap and a splash of wet spray across my face, I am through the current, and paddling along Juniper Point. Time to point the bow West and slog back against the wind and the current in the safety of the harbor. And deal with that numb left thumb.
besos
Alan
NOT traveling West 2010 Day 2
12-5-2010 0807 BBA Bright light patterning Vicki’s house next door. She
avulsed the tendon of her little finger trying to restrain Ruby, her black
lab, apparently in some kind of dog based encounter with Fred and Peggy, who
live near the beach. I think Peggy has appeared on her property above us
when Fuji and I have been on the beach. But she is far enough distant to not
hear her cries of ‘No Dogs!’, and thus to wave cheerfully back. We can
perhaps leave it that way..she gets her shouting, and Fuji gets her winter
beach.
But I wanted to write about the bike path today.
The bike path is really what makes my current two days a week job so
perfect. Created in the early 1970’s along the railroad right of way, the
bike path currently runs from the Steamship Authority parking lot in Woods
Hole to where route 151 intersects with rt 28A in North Falmouth..a bit over
10 miles away. If there were a bikepath trivia show, I would do well, with
my knowledge of the crossings, overpasses, and even one cow sized underpass..
At night, when the path becomes a long tunnel of darkness or a ribbon of
moonlight, depending on calendar and weather, knowing from the bumps and the
reflectors at the level crossings what is out there keeps the hour long ride
from becoming boring. And then, there is always the possibility of earphones
and music.
An hour when I can be innocent of cell phone or the need for conversational
interaction. An hour that spans as many different sceneries as the Cape has
to offer. An hour of sweat exercise, wind in the face, rain or snow or sun,
all united by a righteous need to get to work. What could be better?
But wait, it *does* get better! Last year my co-workers gave me a biking
suit, a kind of stretchy black coverall that I probably never would have
bought for myself, but that actually works to make sub freezing bicycling
fun. Plus a slick hood and padded shorts..all standard biking equipment, but
new to me. Coupled with my kayaking gloves and parka, I am good down to
below zero…beyond that I switch out to a wetsuit, or add long underwear and
rain gear. And the gloves can be supplemented with chemical handwarmers.
The history of this part of the Cape is written all along the bike path. It
began, I suppose, with the Laurentide glaciation.
As you will remember, if you live anywhere in Canada or the northern USA,
the Laurentide ice shelf formed during a Milankovich earth wobble cycle
beginning about 120,000 years ago.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/iceages.html
By 19,000 BCE the ice had moshed New England about 400 feet below world
wide sea level, and the ice had reached present day New York. As it
retreated over the next 10,000 years, it left Long Island, Block Island, all
the Elizabeth Islands, Marthas Vineyard, Nomans Land, and Nantucket, as well
as all of Cape Cod behind. It left Rockport rocky, and massaged most of
Maine. The water was still mostly ice. People probably lived in the middle
of presend day Vineyard Sound..Mastadons definitely left their molars there..
Then the water returned, followed by the Kennedys, the Clintons, and the
Obamas, to mention only a few of our visitors. Soon, some people think
within a few generations, the water will reclaim a lot real estate and the
bike path too. But for now, it follows a railway engineers straight line
from point to point, transecting the aforementioned geology.
The Woods Hole steamship authority was originally restricted to a wharf
owned by the railroad. The old terminus station was right opposite the
Leeside Bar and Grill, and, on the other side of Luscomb, Sam Cahoon’s fish
market and Ships Chandlery.
Sam Cahoon’s was as close to my church as any recognized place of worship
could be. I could walk into the cool splashy room where the lobster tanks
stood on both sides, and three levels high. Sometimes there would be a real
behemoth in the last tank, the one reserved for big ‘uns. The smallest, sold
as ‘chicks’ were nearer the door. That meant the already impressive 5 pound
and up big ‘uns were cloaked in shadow. Well, Sam is dead now, so I can
confess that once I did put a chick into the big ‘uns tank, to see what
would happen. Nothing, at least not in human time. The chick hid under a big
‘un and was hard to recapture.
Or I could sidle in through the doors left open and unattended to the
street, and wander around through the supply section. Huge bales of netting,
rolls of rope, bright brass harpoon heads for sword boats, and long
unfinished poles to make the harpoon shafts. Real so’wester fisherman hats
in yellow, black, orange, and big orange overalls for big bellied men.
Paints of all sorts, and lacing it all together the smells of okum, tar,
ozone and fish. Yes, Sam, I stole a harpoon head…but put it back a day
later, after a sleepness night.
There’s a lot more of Sam Cahoons rattling around my brain, but that’s for
another day, as I ride by the expansion ferry slip that was built where the
fishmarket stood, and turn through the short term parking lot.
The longer term parking lot lies along the path, which is a car road as it
passes under the first overpass, along the head of Little Harbor, and then
under the second overpass, the one near the Church of the Messiah. It was
formerly the switch yard for the railroad, and since rail use had declined
by the time I was a teenager, I have a lot of memories of the little
clapboard building that had been used as a bunkhouse and working office for
railway workers, but which was by the late 1950’s was unused and locked with
a skeleton lock that my skeleton key fit nicely. But another time, or never,
for that.
These days, the trip NE through the lot and onto the path where it
overpasses the Nobska road is unobstructed..in summer there are tourists
getting in and out of cars and one must watch more carefully. Then we are
into the woods, and the path curves over Fay road and past the little MBL
settlements of Devils Lane and Memorial Circle, hidden in the trees of
course, and eventually past Fay Beach , reaching a long stretch where it
indeed runs right along the Shining Sea of Vineyard Sound.
Yes, and these trees are almost all second or even third growth. When I was
a kid there were a lot of scrub pines (*Pinus virginiana ) *but now its
mostly small deciduous trees like beech, black and white oak, maple, birch
and sumach. Perhaps the cape had lots of trees when Europeans first arrived,
but by the time they were taking photographs, they had all been cut. And
much of the land was in use as pasture or field, as evidenced by the stone
walls that I can now see, grey against the brown of the fallen leaves. In
the summer, the walls are all buried in catbriar and bittersweet. Now the
bright orange fruit of the bittersweet, left on the vine after the leaves
are gone, provides a delicate counterpoint to the leaves, rocks, and grey
tree trunks. And the rock walls remain, tumbled or proudly still stacked;
‘good fences make good neighbors’.
Well, the usual winds this time of year are NW, and so when I hit the
straight open stretch along the beach, with only the brackish ponds that are
part of the Trunk river drainage of Herring Pond, I generally shift gears to
pedal more comfortably. The beach is sand in the summer; now by some magic
of waves, wind, and water, the ground down round rocks that are part of the
glacial till left behind by the ice are beginning to show. Lately storms
have packed and sculpted 2 and even 3 foot high drifts of brown eelgrass
along the tideline. Mixed in are horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus)
exoskeletons, bits of bluecrab and lobster, vertebrae smelling of fish stink
and iodine, worn fishing lures, the occasional coelenterate, and a rubber
glove or boot. Not so many beer cans; 5cents a can is enough to bring ‘em
back or pick ‘em up, I guess.
Oak Bluffs and for that matter Waquoit looks close enough to touch with this
winter lower humidity and lack of smog. The wind gusts, reminding me to keep
the pressure on the pedal.
Tomorrow…on to Falmouth, the Sippiwissett Marsh, and the cranberry bog
beyond.
Best
Alan
avulsed the tendon of her little finger trying to restrain Ruby, her black
lab, apparently in some kind of dog based encounter with Fred and Peggy, who
live near the beach. I think Peggy has appeared on her property above us
when Fuji and I have been on the beach. But she is far enough distant to not
hear her cries of ‘No Dogs!’, and thus to wave cheerfully back. We can
perhaps leave it that way..she gets her shouting, and Fuji gets her winter
beach.
But I wanted to write about the bike path today.
The bike path is really what makes my current two days a week job so
perfect. Created in the early 1970’s along the railroad right of way, the
bike path currently runs from the Steamship Authority parking lot in Woods
Hole to where route 151 intersects with rt 28A in North Falmouth..a bit over
10 miles away. If there were a bikepath trivia show, I would do well, with
my knowledge of the crossings, overpasses, and even one cow sized underpass..
At night, when the path becomes a long tunnel of darkness or a ribbon of
moonlight, depending on calendar and weather, knowing from the bumps and the
reflectors at the level crossings what is out there keeps the hour long ride
from becoming boring. And then, there is always the possibility of earphones
and music.
An hour when I can be innocent of cell phone or the need for conversational
interaction. An hour that spans as many different sceneries as the Cape has
to offer. An hour of sweat exercise, wind in the face, rain or snow or sun,
all united by a righteous need to get to work. What could be better?
But wait, it *does* get better! Last year my co-workers gave me a biking
suit, a kind of stretchy black coverall that I probably never would have
bought for myself, but that actually works to make sub freezing bicycling
fun. Plus a slick hood and padded shorts..all standard biking equipment, but
new to me. Coupled with my kayaking gloves and parka, I am good down to
below zero…beyond that I switch out to a wetsuit, or add long underwear and
rain gear. And the gloves can be supplemented with chemical handwarmers.
The history of this part of the Cape is written all along the bike path. It
began, I suppose, with the Laurentide glaciation.
As you will remember, if you live anywhere in Canada or the northern USA,
the Laurentide ice shelf formed during a Milankovich earth wobble cycle
beginning about 120,000 years ago.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/iceages.html
By 19,000 BCE the ice had moshed New England about 400 feet below world
wide sea level, and the ice had reached present day New York. As it
retreated over the next 10,000 years, it left Long Island, Block Island, all
the Elizabeth Islands, Marthas Vineyard, Nomans Land, and Nantucket, as well
as all of Cape Cod behind. It left Rockport rocky, and massaged most of
Maine. The water was still mostly ice. People probably lived in the middle
of presend day Vineyard Sound..Mastadons definitely left their molars there..
Then the water returned, followed by the Kennedys, the Clintons, and the
Obamas, to mention only a few of our visitors. Soon, some people think
within a few generations, the water will reclaim a lot real estate and the
bike path too. But for now, it follows a railway engineers straight line
from point to point, transecting the aforementioned geology.
The Woods Hole steamship authority was originally restricted to a wharf
owned by the railroad. The old terminus station was right opposite the
Leeside Bar and Grill, and, on the other side of Luscomb, Sam Cahoon’s fish
market and Ships Chandlery.
Sam Cahoon’s was as close to my church as any recognized place of worship
could be. I could walk into the cool splashy room where the lobster tanks
stood on both sides, and three levels high. Sometimes there would be a real
behemoth in the last tank, the one reserved for big ‘uns. The smallest, sold
as ‘chicks’ were nearer the door. That meant the already impressive 5 pound
and up big ‘uns were cloaked in shadow. Well, Sam is dead now, so I can
confess that once I did put a chick into the big ‘uns tank, to see what
would happen. Nothing, at least not in human time. The chick hid under a big
‘un and was hard to recapture.
Or I could sidle in through the doors left open and unattended to the
street, and wander around through the supply section. Huge bales of netting,
rolls of rope, bright brass harpoon heads for sword boats, and long
unfinished poles to make the harpoon shafts. Real so’wester fisherman hats
in yellow, black, orange, and big orange overalls for big bellied men.
Paints of all sorts, and lacing it all together the smells of okum, tar,
ozone and fish. Yes, Sam, I stole a harpoon head…but put it back a day
later, after a sleepness night.
There’s a lot more of Sam Cahoons rattling around my brain, but that’s for
another day, as I ride by the expansion ferry slip that was built where the
fishmarket stood, and turn through the short term parking lot.
The longer term parking lot lies along the path, which is a car road as it
passes under the first overpass, along the head of Little Harbor, and then
under the second overpass, the one near the Church of the Messiah. It was
formerly the switch yard for the railroad, and since rail use had declined
by the time I was a teenager, I have a lot of memories of the little
clapboard building that had been used as a bunkhouse and working office for
railway workers, but which was by the late 1950’s was unused and locked with
a skeleton lock that my skeleton key fit nicely. But another time, or never,
for that.
These days, the trip NE through the lot and onto the path where it
overpasses the Nobska road is unobstructed..in summer there are tourists
getting in and out of cars and one must watch more carefully. Then we are
into the woods, and the path curves over Fay road and past the little MBL
settlements of Devils Lane and Memorial Circle, hidden in the trees of
course, and eventually past Fay Beach , reaching a long stretch where it
indeed runs right along the Shining Sea of Vineyard Sound.
Yes, and these trees are almost all second or even third growth. When I was
a kid there were a lot of scrub pines (*Pinus virginiana ) *but now its
mostly small deciduous trees like beech, black and white oak, maple, birch
and sumach. Perhaps the cape had lots of trees when Europeans first arrived,
but by the time they were taking photographs, they had all been cut. And
much of the land was in use as pasture or field, as evidenced by the stone
walls that I can now see, grey against the brown of the fallen leaves. In
the summer, the walls are all buried in catbriar and bittersweet. Now the
bright orange fruit of the bittersweet, left on the vine after the leaves
are gone, provides a delicate counterpoint to the leaves, rocks, and grey
tree trunks. And the rock walls remain, tumbled or proudly still stacked;
‘good fences make good neighbors’.
Well, the usual winds this time of year are NW, and so when I hit the
straight open stretch along the beach, with only the brackish ponds that are
part of the Trunk river drainage of Herring Pond, I generally shift gears to
pedal more comfortably. The beach is sand in the summer; now by some magic
of waves, wind, and water, the ground down round rocks that are part of the
glacial till left behind by the ice are beginning to show. Lately storms
have packed and sculpted 2 and even 3 foot high drifts of brown eelgrass
along the tideline. Mixed in are horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus)
exoskeletons, bits of bluecrab and lobster, vertebrae smelling of fish stink
and iodine, worn fishing lures, the occasional coelenterate, and a rubber
glove or boot. Not so many beer cans; 5cents a can is enough to bring ‘em
back or pick ‘em up, I guess.
Oak Bluffs and for that matter Waquoit looks close enough to touch with this
winter lower humidity and lack of smog. The wind gusts, reminding me to keep
the pressure on the pedal.
Tomorrow…on to Falmouth, the Sippiwissett Marsh, and the cranberry bog
beyond.
Best
Alan
Friday, December 3, 2010
Not Travel West 2010 Day 1
12-3-2010 0835 Buzzards Bay Ave, Woods Hole MA Today we are NOT driving to Princeton NJ. And the day after, we will NOT be continuing on, not South along the BlueRidge Parkway, and then later not to Athens, then not West to Santa Fe and not ultimately Carmel by the Sea. We will not crank up the La Pavoni expresso maker where it perches on some formaldehyde degassing bureau or deskette in a dog friendly motel. We will not be looking for antique malls from our 70 mph superhighway or from the 45 mph blue highway that we happen to be on at any given time. We will not be correcting Alan's driving speed when he becomes involved in an explanation of anything at all, and we will not be exasperated by Sala's tone of voice that we imagine to be angry with us, but is actually only being emphatic. Fuji the little dog, now 2 years old and a veteran of such travels, will not be surveying the passing scene from a perch on top of the load that somehow always fills the back seat to the brim. And she will not be stamping around on her sharp little feet in Sala's lap when we commence our onward journey each morning.
No.
Well, just when you think you have a plan, thar she goes, out the window, up in flames, into the ashbin of history!!
'Bout noontimes on Thanksgiving, as we were tussling with our roof rack outside 18 Mast Road, a brown Camry piloted by a young driver came downhill too fast and slapped our little grey Prius around quite a bit. We were aghast, but un-injured as was the Camry driver, so dont worry your pretty little heads about that!
In ER work, its always a bad sign when an accident victim's eyes are pointing in different directions.
In cars, its a bad sign when the drive wheels point in different directions. And I didnt like that expensive white smoke when I started it up to try to pull loose from the tree the car eventually was pushed into.
Now, a week later and knowing much more about the details of paying your policy on time, reading the fine print, double jeopardy for taxation, rules and regulations concerning automobile loans and registrations, the effect of monthly payments on credit ratings and how to remove a crippled vehicle from a small tree without damaging the tree, the faithful little Prius has gone off on a longbed tow truck, and we have tickets to fly JetBlue from Boston next week.
As Kurt V would say, 'so it goes'.
So this latest dancing lesson from the higher power is being interpreted here in Woods Hole as an invitation to slim down on what must be transported to the West Coast, and to spend time with friends and enjoy the fall.
And it is gorgeous around here. The colors are fading, its true. Fuji's gingery redness can be seen again now, as she darts into the woods in pursuit of squirrels (and in her horrified parents imagination, the clutches of the slavering yellow eyed, cruel jawed coy-wolves that are lying in wait for her). The leaves have gone to brown. The branches, bereft, wave their pointing fingers against a grey and troubled sky. Or against an incredible blue. My moods fall and rise with these changes. Perhaps the humidity has something to do with it. Perhaps its the incident sunlight lying on the fallen leaves, momentarily giving them back the color that time and the chemistry of death has taken from them.
Perhaps my moods follow the catspaws of wind scudding across Great Harbor as I paddle out for one more trip in the kayak. I finally have gear that pretty much works..double mittens and chemical hand warmers being at the heart of the matter. Passles and flocks of scoter and eider ducks make a sussurus of noise rising from the water as I come around the bottom of Ram island and turn East into the ebbing tide that flows between Ram and Devils Foot. Its shallow here..some years there are mussels, but at this time its only banks and mounds of crepidula sp., the boat shell. Crepidula, you may remember, is one of those defiantly transgender animules...they grow one on the next, the young one starting out as guys, and then transforming into gals. ( You might want to know that officially that makes them 'protandrous hermaphrodites'. And you thought your sex life was complicated!!)
I paddle on through the shallow part, and am sucked towards the head of Devils Foot island by the current flowing out of Great Harbor and into The Hole towards Buzzards Bay. Across the water, the outlines of familiar rocks of Red Ledge are reshaped by hauled out harbor seals...and one big enough to be a Grey seal. They spend the winter around here, something I never knew as a child because they are gone by the time summer folks arrive. They are habituated to motor boats, but raise their heads, and slide off into the water when I am still a quarter mile away. Perhaps they can see my imagined and historically correct harpoon. Who knows a seal's thoughts?
The boathouse I depart from is undergoing a transformation. For years, its been the base of operations of John, my mentor and friend. His methods of boatbuilding are a mixture of brilliant improvisation, advanced design, and impossible dreams. His latest construction has now been sawn up and removed to a better land, and the structure, open to the harbor and originally a 'drive in' boathouse, is being redone for kayaking and the pleasures of the harbor. But John's credentials do not rest on his boatbuilding. For years, he pioneered biotelemetry, using his skills with physics and electronics to place electronic 'bugs' that reported metabolic function on un-vivisected animals from cormorants to whales, and most swimming mammals and birds in between. Unlike romantics driven by a need to communicate with sea mammals, John wanted to understand how they do it..how can an elephant seal dive to more than 4000 feet and stay submerged for an hour? http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4277631 He wanted to understand how whales could be so big. So his stories range from trading a case of scotch for a blue whales heart on board a Norwegian whaling ship (the only way to measure the vital parameters of the heart of this largest mammal) to calling into question the so called 'diving bradycardia reflex' by recording that cormorants hand raised to be unafraid of humans did not slow their hearts as the terrified seals and porpoises tied to boards and held underwater did).
So I think of John when the wild seals slide back into their element, to casually not breathe for a very long time, and of John's challenging assertion: Mammals are the size we are because of the chemical properties of oxygen. Think about that, ye learned students of physiology. Its deep. How can shrews be tiny, and whales huge? How can the shrews heart beat over 1000 times per minute and the whales, 5? John believes that you don't need any fancy biological mathematics. We are all just doing the best we can with oxygen, a wonderful molecule, but one which neither diffuses nor dissolves well in our body fluids.
The Hole is its usual fitful startful place, eddies and currents running every which way, althought the tide charts show a steady ebb. The red of the channel marking 'nun' bouy and the green 'can' creates ripply colors across the water. The light tan of the grasses and the red of the poison oak leaves on Nonamessett gleam in the incident sun. Another flight of ducks decides its time to move; the noise is the first I am aware of them. There are coyote tracks, one large, one set smaller, on the sandy beach across the Hole.
My upwind glove is getting soaked. Time to start back, upwind. Now the spray is on my face. There are no boats, only mooring floats left in the harbor to feel the cold caress..winter coming.
So...tomorrow the bike path, a different kind of travel.
saludos
Alan
No.
Well, just when you think you have a plan, thar she goes, out the window, up in flames, into the ashbin of history!!
'Bout noontimes on Thanksgiving, as we were tussling with our roof rack outside 18 Mast Road, a brown Camry piloted by a young driver came downhill too fast and slapped our little grey Prius around quite a bit. We were aghast, but un-injured as was the Camry driver, so dont worry your pretty little heads about that!
In ER work, its always a bad sign when an accident victim's eyes are pointing in different directions.
In cars, its a bad sign when the drive wheels point in different directions. And I didnt like that expensive white smoke when I started it up to try to pull loose from the tree the car eventually was pushed into.
Now, a week later and knowing much more about the details of paying your policy on time, reading the fine print, double jeopardy for taxation, rules and regulations concerning automobile loans and registrations, the effect of monthly payments on credit ratings and how to remove a crippled vehicle from a small tree without damaging the tree, the faithful little Prius has gone off on a longbed tow truck, and we have tickets to fly JetBlue from Boston next week.
As Kurt V would say, 'so it goes'.
So this latest dancing lesson from the higher power is being interpreted here in Woods Hole as an invitation to slim down on what must be transported to the West Coast, and to spend time with friends and enjoy the fall.
And it is gorgeous around here. The colors are fading, its true. Fuji's gingery redness can be seen again now, as she darts into the woods in pursuit of squirrels (and in her horrified parents imagination, the clutches of the slavering yellow eyed, cruel jawed coy-wolves that are lying in wait for her). The leaves have gone to brown. The branches, bereft, wave their pointing fingers against a grey and troubled sky. Or against an incredible blue. My moods fall and rise with these changes. Perhaps the humidity has something to do with it. Perhaps its the incident sunlight lying on the fallen leaves, momentarily giving them back the color that time and the chemistry of death has taken from them.
Perhaps my moods follow the catspaws of wind scudding across Great Harbor as I paddle out for one more trip in the kayak. I finally have gear that pretty much works..double mittens and chemical hand warmers being at the heart of the matter. Passles and flocks of scoter and eider ducks make a sussurus of noise rising from the water as I come around the bottom of Ram island and turn East into the ebbing tide that flows between Ram and Devils Foot. Its shallow here..some years there are mussels, but at this time its only banks and mounds of crepidula sp., the boat shell. Crepidula, you may remember, is one of those defiantly transgender animules...they grow one on the next, the young one starting out as guys, and then transforming into gals. ( You might want to know that officially that makes them 'protandrous hermaphrodites'. And you thought your sex life was complicated!!)
I paddle on through the shallow part, and am sucked towards the head of Devils Foot island by the current flowing out of Great Harbor and into The Hole towards Buzzards Bay. Across the water, the outlines of familiar rocks of Red Ledge are reshaped by hauled out harbor seals...and one big enough to be a Grey seal. They spend the winter around here, something I never knew as a child because they are gone by the time summer folks arrive. They are habituated to motor boats, but raise their heads, and slide off into the water when I am still a quarter mile away. Perhaps they can see my imagined and historically correct harpoon. Who knows a seal's thoughts?
The boathouse I depart from is undergoing a transformation. For years, its been the base of operations of John, my mentor and friend. His methods of boatbuilding are a mixture of brilliant improvisation, advanced design, and impossible dreams. His latest construction has now been sawn up and removed to a better land, and the structure, open to the harbor and originally a 'drive in' boathouse, is being redone for kayaking and the pleasures of the harbor. But John's credentials do not rest on his boatbuilding. For years, he pioneered biotelemetry, using his skills with physics and electronics to place electronic 'bugs' that reported metabolic function on un-vivisected animals from cormorants to whales, and most swimming mammals and birds in between. Unlike romantics driven by a need to communicate with sea mammals, John wanted to understand how they do it..how can an elephant seal dive to more than 4000 feet and stay submerged for an hour? http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4277631 He wanted to understand how whales could be so big. So his stories range from trading a case of scotch for a blue whales heart on board a Norwegian whaling ship (the only way to measure the vital parameters of the heart of this largest mammal) to calling into question the so called 'diving bradycardia reflex' by recording that cormorants hand raised to be unafraid of humans did not slow their hearts as the terrified seals and porpoises tied to boards and held underwater did).
So I think of John when the wild seals slide back into their element, to casually not breathe for a very long time, and of John's challenging assertion: Mammals are the size we are because of the chemical properties of oxygen. Think about that, ye learned students of physiology. Its deep. How can shrews be tiny, and whales huge? How can the shrews heart beat over 1000 times per minute and the whales, 5? John believes that you don't need any fancy biological mathematics. We are all just doing the best we can with oxygen, a wonderful molecule, but one which neither diffuses nor dissolves well in our body fluids.
The Hole is its usual fitful startful place, eddies and currents running every which way, althought the tide charts show a steady ebb. The red of the channel marking 'nun' bouy and the green 'can' creates ripply colors across the water. The light tan of the grasses and the red of the poison oak leaves on Nonamessett gleam in the incident sun. Another flight of ducks decides its time to move; the noise is the first I am aware of them. There are coyote tracks, one large, one set smaller, on the sandy beach across the Hole.
My upwind glove is getting soaked. Time to start back, upwind. Now the spray is on my face. There are no boats, only mooring floats left in the harbor to feel the cold caress..winter coming.
So...tomorrow the bike path, a different kind of travel.
saludos
Alan
Monday, November 8, 2010
Maine 2010 Day 2
11-6-10 1730 Searsmont. The day is fading, temperature going down. Paddling on Quantabacook (Abanaki= ‘plenty of game animals” ) Lake this afternoon was beautiful, and also cold. Paddle hard, no excuses Alan. Double paddle kayaking has made my J stroke canoe muscles atrophy. However, my stereotypical teutonic reflexes relabeled what I was feeling as ‘good pain’. For open water, a Greenland style double paddle seems much more efficient. And it would probably not work well contesting with the snags of low hanging branches in those thousands of miles of small North American streams that canoe paddles evolved on, and that I haven’t experienced. The water is high enough to be flowing right over the dam that maintains the lake. Marty’s selection of paddles included one of those slender ones with the sensually delicious firm edged hand grip and the long smoothly swelling lines where it gently parts the waters folds. Qunatabacook is one of those rum colored lakes originating in peat bogs…sometimes containing some natural insecticides, as does the Rio Negro flowing from Columbia to join the Rio Branco at Manaus, and thus less mosquito ridden than those without. There were plenty of muskrat lodges, those smaller less well crafted lumps of reed and mud that the little fur bearers pile up and then burrow into to create a home. A wet version of the packrat nests of the Sierras. The more earthquake proof beaver lodges are downstream, apparently. A few water birds, but it was a generally still, slowly coiling, reed framed and tree girdled landscape. The buildings of beautiful downtown Searsmont came into view, and I turned the little canoe around and headed back up to pole my way across the dam, and paddle back North along the lake. The reeds, thinned by fall, and each one making a visually decisive curving statement in relation to the still water and the gently moving air, also made a mild audible comment, perhaps not a complaint, as the gunwales of the canoe strummed by them. A bluejay was brilliant messing around in the undergrowth. I wished for a cardinal. Or the loon. And it was perfect just the way it was.
Back in the house, Marty asked ‘Do you think you remember enough four letter words to help with the gutters?’. We joined our interdependent forces to finish the job of clearing the gutters and re-installing the gutter screens. He didn’t fall, and I didn’t let him. Now Marty has a blaze going in the fireplace. The main course is roasting, and Joanne and Sala are working and chatting, rich with their earlier trip to the Camden Yard Sale and at least one other antique and junk market. Brit, the beautiful daughter, and her family will be arriving soon for dinner. Mildly sore muscles, eyes full of lakescapes, and the prospect of dinner; what more can one want?
About hip fractures; Jamie writes to remind me that the bisphosphonate fracture risk is for the relatively rare SUBtrochanteric fractures..not the common Intertrochanteric kind. Jamie, you may not know your quiet example is the reason I walk up 5 flights of stairs at the JMP rather than calling that infernal elevator!!. And you will be pleased to know I ride a bike back and forth to work on the Cape. What a student; what a teacher!! Thanks again, Jamie!
Also, in the day that is gently fading away outside, lies Liberty. This is a town, about 10 miles from here on the road between Augusta and Belfast, and it has, facing each other, two local industries of note. One is Liberty Graphics, home of the 47cent cuppa coffee (good too..pumpkin spice is the special of the season) and the other , in a building that would gladden the heart of Charles Addams, Liberty Tools, a three story collection of the world of hand tools. Oh, there are some power tools as well, but really only the ones that fit in the hand, and mostly it’s wrenches,dies,hammers,pliers, taps,jigs,micrometers,mauls,drivers,cutters,chisels,bits,bites,and probably a bat or too. Order…oh sure, there’s order..most of the hammers are on the left about half way back, and most of the bits are in the second and third on the right (that would be ‘Store Right’, as in ‘Stage Right’..just in case you make it to Liberty and want to try following instructions). But up on the third floor next to the old magazines and in front of the (literally) termite infested loom frame, there is another stash of hammers, and I kept finding wooden carpenters levels in, on, under and next to other stashes throughout the building.
I was mostly in a file mood, and found some great little files, just the thing I wanted for my novice level jewelry making. I passed up the only slightly damaged adz head for $14, and the complete set of numbered drills ( I really only use the #55 for the stuff I am doing) for $18. A whole bundle of little mill bastards (yes, Dorothy, that really is what you get to call it) cost only $2.00. And I decided against the heavy wood rasp because it was flat, and I kinda wanted one side rounded…for $3!!!..what was I thinking??
What’s so special about this? Well, I guess I could say the place almost glows with the energy of machined, honed, polished and yes even rusted steel. It’s a cathedral..or a place of worship at least…to the glory of steel and to the ingenuity of humans in making such use of an intractable material like Fe. Did you know that one of the first iron works in the new world was on the Saugus, just a bit to the South?
$21.54 later, I went across the street for coffee and to rootle ( a word that I think Aminta made up, and that I find an occasional use for when rummage is too strong) through the bins of seconds. Some beautiful shirts for $4 each that I won’t describe because they are intended for gifts for some of you.
Well, now its morning, 11-7-10, 0745 old time, and 0645 in the glorious fall back time of today. Did you remember? Have you already arrived an hour early? Joanne has a lot of clocks, which she says are all individually set to avoid any synchronous striking. She says she will just stop them for an hour..Fall is easier than the saltation of Spring. The colors are coming alive again as the light increases…I can see enough green to remember what the moss at the base of the beech tree really looks like, and how the carpet of red and yellow leaves that begins at the edge of the clearing really blankets the woods so very completely. Fuji now has a bright orange collar muff, that will hopefully protect her furry little fox body from the unexpected fox hunter. And we will be getting down the road towards Cionas house, and then on to Sister Mary’s for dinner.
Abracos
Alan
Back in the house, Marty asked ‘Do you think you remember enough four letter words to help with the gutters?’. We joined our interdependent forces to finish the job of clearing the gutters and re-installing the gutter screens. He didn’t fall, and I didn’t let him. Now Marty has a blaze going in the fireplace. The main course is roasting, and Joanne and Sala are working and chatting, rich with their earlier trip to the Camden Yard Sale and at least one other antique and junk market. Brit, the beautiful daughter, and her family will be arriving soon for dinner. Mildly sore muscles, eyes full of lakescapes, and the prospect of dinner; what more can one want?
About hip fractures; Jamie writes to remind me that the bisphosphonate fracture risk is for the relatively rare SUBtrochanteric fractures..not the common Intertrochanteric kind. Jamie, you may not know your quiet example is the reason I walk up 5 flights of stairs at the JMP rather than calling that infernal elevator!!. And you will be pleased to know I ride a bike back and forth to work on the Cape. What a student; what a teacher!! Thanks again, Jamie!
Also, in the day that is gently fading away outside, lies Liberty. This is a town, about 10 miles from here on the road between Augusta and Belfast, and it has, facing each other, two local industries of note. One is Liberty Graphics, home of the 47cent cuppa coffee (good too..pumpkin spice is the special of the season) and the other , in a building that would gladden the heart of Charles Addams, Liberty Tools, a three story collection of the world of hand tools. Oh, there are some power tools as well, but really only the ones that fit in the hand, and mostly it’s wrenches,dies,hammers,pliers, taps,jigs,micrometers,mauls,drivers,cutters,chisels,bits,bites,and probably a bat or too. Order…oh sure, there’s order..most of the hammers are on the left about half way back, and most of the bits are in the second and third on the right (that would be ‘Store Right’, as in ‘Stage Right’..just in case you make it to Liberty and want to try following instructions). But up on the third floor next to the old magazines and in front of the (literally) termite infested loom frame, there is another stash of hammers, and I kept finding wooden carpenters levels in, on, under and next to other stashes throughout the building.
I was mostly in a file mood, and found some great little files, just the thing I wanted for my novice level jewelry making. I passed up the only slightly damaged adz head for $14, and the complete set of numbered drills ( I really only use the #55 for the stuff I am doing) for $18. A whole bundle of little mill bastards (yes, Dorothy, that really is what you get to call it) cost only $2.00. And I decided against the heavy wood rasp because it was flat, and I kinda wanted one side rounded…for $3!!!..what was I thinking??
What’s so special about this? Well, I guess I could say the place almost glows with the energy of machined, honed, polished and yes even rusted steel. It’s a cathedral..or a place of worship at least…to the glory of steel and to the ingenuity of humans in making such use of an intractable material like Fe. Did you know that one of the first iron works in the new world was on the Saugus, just a bit to the South?
$21.54 later, I went across the street for coffee and to rootle ( a word that I think Aminta made up, and that I find an occasional use for when rummage is too strong) through the bins of seconds. Some beautiful shirts for $4 each that I won’t describe because they are intended for gifts for some of you.
Well, now its morning, 11-7-10, 0745 old time, and 0645 in the glorious fall back time of today. Did you remember? Have you already arrived an hour early? Joanne has a lot of clocks, which she says are all individually set to avoid any synchronous striking. She says she will just stop them for an hour..Fall is easier than the saltation of Spring. The colors are coming alive again as the light increases…I can see enough green to remember what the moss at the base of the beech tree really looks like, and how the carpet of red and yellow leaves that begins at the edge of the clearing really blankets the woods so very completely. Fuji now has a bright orange collar muff, that will hopefully protect her furry little fox body from the unexpected fox hunter. And we will be getting down the road towards Cionas house, and then on to Sister Mary’s for dinner.
Abracos
Alan
Maine 2010 Day 1
11-6-2010 0645 Searsmont. Sitting at Joannes dining room table…well, of course its Marty’s dining room table as well, and he certainly has his mark on the house, on the living space, on the life that they have here. I didn’t mean to diminish that. And yet it’s comfortable to think of this as Joannes Table. The dancing bears painting over the entryway from the kitchen living room, as I sit at the table facing away from the driveway and towards the lake. The glass panes of the mullioned doors of the glass holding cabinet is comfortably and memorably to my left, and the windows that look out on the entryway to my right.
Its getting light around all the edges now, and perhaps also time for Fuji to go out.
She loves it. She scampers off into the breaking day, head up, ears even upper, eyes scanning the terrain ahead. It’s a fast canter really, not her full ears back pursuit gallop, when she stretches out and flows over the ground, airborne for long moments as she crosses a low spot or the line of rocks that marks a ruined stacked wall.
Its completely still, of course, the lake reflecting shiny colors from the sky, the browns and yellows of the thinning foliage framing little shards of reflection, and impossibly metaphorically pure two long strong quavering calls; a loon. Soundscape..
Fuji blends right into the fall woods, and its hunting season, time to seriously and with purpose shoot anything that moves. According to Joanne, there is no middle ground. Those cars parked beside the road mark the spots of the venison harvesting righteously gun toting huntermen. And in this immediate vicinity there are postings that say the taking of any rock, wood or hunting of any kinds without written permission will result in being shot on sight. So you’re shot if you don’t, and shot if you do.
We drove from Woods Hole to Boston yesterday morning. As usual, Alan had all the good reasons why a 8 AM or earlier start was essential. And as usual, it was after 10 when we actually the Fitz-Ritter wine, the coffee, and the breakfast sandwiches in hand and were heading over the Bourne Bridge. I wonder at my own attachment to early departures. There is definitely something beyond the esthetics of the crepuscular time, although that’s certainly a memorable part of it. I love the beginnings , the seemingly empty stage revealed as the mist draws back.. A moment later the squirrel that has been frozen on at the base of a limb suddenly starts down the tree trunk. The coyote that was standing slighty behind the large rock trots forward across the seaweed battlements piled on the rocky tideline by the storm last week. The downy woodpecker sidles into view around the trunk of the dead pine. The loon calls.. once… quavering.. and then again.
Driving North, Gracey kept trying to get us off US 95…apparently her program is trying to save us money by avoiding toll roads. It rained. The little dog wanted to sleep on Sala’s lap. NPR stations along the way have finished their fall fund raising, and were back to routine broadcasts. We went through Portland on 285, and then turned off at Freeport, for the annual visit to LL Bean.
Actually, Fuji and I have an annual walk in the woods; Sala carries on the serious family shopping. And then I leave Fuji in the car and go to gawk at the latest in pheromone attractants, camo tree sits for deer hunters, and those major compound bow hunting outfits for only a shade over a thousand bucks. It was rainy and a little cold…the ice cream stores looked a little folorn. We got back on the road as the light faded.
Got to Searsport about 6:30, and a noisy welcome from Lazlo and Lydia, the resident dogs. Fuji has been here…but of course there is some high tail posturing and we were careful to follow Joanne’s advise to re-introduce them outside the house and of course without any food in the equation. No growling, and we all sit down for ice cold oysters, then scallops, sautéed fall vegetables and salad dinner. Bliss.
Well, its later now. Marty and I took two canoes and Lydia and Fuji and went down the lake to the dam. This is a herring run lake, and Marty as an experience water man takes an active interest in the herring..who are constantly being threatened by the bigmouth bass loving freshies who want to damm out the damm anadromous minnows. The reflections were exquisite, hard to paddle into even, and if it was cold, it was still a perfect cold. We let the two dogs off to run back along the shore. Lazlo had disappeared earlier, probably in search of bacon from the house next door.
And now its time to go to Liberty Tools.
Its getting light around all the edges now, and perhaps also time for Fuji to go out.
She loves it. She scampers off into the breaking day, head up, ears even upper, eyes scanning the terrain ahead. It’s a fast canter really, not her full ears back pursuit gallop, when she stretches out and flows over the ground, airborne for long moments as she crosses a low spot or the line of rocks that marks a ruined stacked wall.
Its completely still, of course, the lake reflecting shiny colors from the sky, the browns and yellows of the thinning foliage framing little shards of reflection, and impossibly metaphorically pure two long strong quavering calls; a loon. Soundscape..
Fuji blends right into the fall woods, and its hunting season, time to seriously and with purpose shoot anything that moves. According to Joanne, there is no middle ground. Those cars parked beside the road mark the spots of the venison harvesting righteously gun toting huntermen. And in this immediate vicinity there are postings that say the taking of any rock, wood or hunting of any kinds without written permission will result in being shot on sight. So you’re shot if you don’t, and shot if you do.
We drove from Woods Hole to Boston yesterday morning. As usual, Alan had all the good reasons why a 8 AM or earlier start was essential. And as usual, it was after 10 when we actually the Fitz-Ritter wine, the coffee, and the breakfast sandwiches in hand and were heading over the Bourne Bridge. I wonder at my own attachment to early departures. There is definitely something beyond the esthetics of the crepuscular time, although that’s certainly a memorable part of it. I love the beginnings , the seemingly empty stage revealed as the mist draws back.. A moment later the squirrel that has been frozen on at the base of a limb suddenly starts down the tree trunk. The coyote that was standing slighty behind the large rock trots forward across the seaweed battlements piled on the rocky tideline by the storm last week. The downy woodpecker sidles into view around the trunk of the dead pine. The loon calls.. once… quavering.. and then again.
Driving North, Gracey kept trying to get us off US 95…apparently her program is trying to save us money by avoiding toll roads. It rained. The little dog wanted to sleep on Sala’s lap. NPR stations along the way have finished their fall fund raising, and were back to routine broadcasts. We went through Portland on 285, and then turned off at Freeport, for the annual visit to LL Bean.
Actually, Fuji and I have an annual walk in the woods; Sala carries on the serious family shopping. And then I leave Fuji in the car and go to gawk at the latest in pheromone attractants, camo tree sits for deer hunters, and those major compound bow hunting outfits for only a shade over a thousand bucks. It was rainy and a little cold…the ice cream stores looked a little folorn. We got back on the road as the light faded.
Got to Searsport about 6:30, and a noisy welcome from Lazlo and Lydia, the resident dogs. Fuji has been here…but of course there is some high tail posturing and we were careful to follow Joanne’s advise to re-introduce them outside the house and of course without any food in the equation. No growling, and we all sit down for ice cold oysters, then scallops, sautéed fall vegetables and salad dinner. Bliss.
Well, its later now. Marty and I took two canoes and Lydia and Fuji and went down the lake to the dam. This is a herring run lake, and Marty as an experience water man takes an active interest in the herring..who are constantly being threatened by the bigmouth bass loving freshies who want to damm out the damm anadromous minnows. The reflections were exquisite, hard to paddle into even, and if it was cold, it was still a perfect cold. We let the two dogs off to run back along the shore. Lazlo had disappeared earlier, probably in search of bacon from the house next door.
And now its time to go to Liberty Tools.
Maine 2010 Day 2
11-6-10 1730 Searsmont. The day is fading, temperature going down. Paddling on Quantabacook (Abanaki= ‘plenty of game animals” ) Lake this afternoon was beautiful, and also cold. Paddle hard, no excuses Alan. Double paddle kayaking has made my J stroke canoe muscles atrophy. However, my stereotypical teutonic reflexes relabeled what I was feeling as ‘good pain’. For open water, a Greenland style double paddle seems much more efficient. And it would probably not work well contesting with the snags of low hanging branches in those thousands of miles of small North American streams that canoe paddles evolved on, and that I haven’t experienced. The water is high enough to be flowing right over the dam that maintains the lake. Marty’s selection of paddles included one of those slender ones with the sensually delicious firm edged hand grip and the long smoothly swelling lines where it gently parts the waters folds. Qunatabacook is one of those rum colored lakes originating in peat bogs…sometimes containing some natural insecticides, as does the Rio Negro flowing from Columbia to join the Rio Branco at Manaus, and thus less mosquito ridden than those without. There were plenty of muskrat lodges, those smaller less well crafted lumps of reed and mud that the little fur bearers pile up and then burrow into to create a home. A wet version of the packrat nests of the Sierras. The more earthquake proof beaver lodges are downstream, apparently. A few water birds, but it was a generally still, slowly coiling, reed framed and tree girdled landscape. The buildings of beautiful downtown Searsmont came into view, and I turned the little canoe around and headed back up to pole my way across the dam, and paddle back North along the lake. The reeds, thinned by fall, and each one making a visually decisive curving statement in relation to the still water and the gently moving air, also made a mild audible comment, perhaps not a complaint, as the gunwales of the canoe strummed by them. A bluejay was brilliant messing around in the undergrowth. I wished for a cardinal. Or the loon. And it was perfect just the way it was.
Back in the house, Marty asked ‘Do you think you remember enough four letter words to help with the gutters?’. We joined our interdependent forces to finish the job of clearing the gutters and re-installing the gutter screens. He didn’t fall, and I didn’t let him. Now Marty has a blaze going in the fireplace. The main course is roasting, and Joanne and Sala are working and chatting, rich with their earlier trip to the Camden Yard Sale and at least one other antique and junk market. Brit, the beautiful daughter, and her family will be arriving soon for dinner. Mildly sore muscles, eyes full of lakescapes, and the prospect of dinner; what more can one want?
About hip fractures; Jamie writes to remind me that the bisphosphonate fracture risk is for the relatively rare SUBtrochanteric fractures..not the common Intertrochanteric kind. Jamie, you may not know your quiet example is the reason I walk up 5 flights of stairs at the JMP rather than calling that infernal elevator!!. And you will be pleased to know I ride a bike back and forth to work on the Cape. What a student; what a teacher!! Thanks again, Jamie!
Also, in the day that is gently fading away outside, lies Liberty. This is a town, about 10 miles from here on the road between Augusta and Belfast, and it has, facing each other, two local industries of note. One is Liberty Graphics, home of the 47cent cuppa coffee (good too..pumpkin spice is the special of the season) and the other , in a building that would gladden the heart of Charles Addams, Liberty Tools, a three story collection of the world of hand tools. Oh, there are some power tools as well, but really only the ones that fit in the hand, and mostly it’s wrenches,dies,hammers,pliers, taps,jigs,micrometers,mauls,drivers,cutters,chisels,bits,bites,and probably a bat or too. Order…oh sure, there’s order..most of the hammers are on the left about half way back, and most of the bits are in the second and third on the right (that would be ‘Store Right’, as in ‘Stage Right’..just in case you make it to Liberty and want to try following instructions). But up on the third floor next to the old magazines and in front of the (literally) termite infested loom frame, there is another stash of hammers, and I kept finding wooden carpenters levels in, on, under and next to other stashes throughout the building.
I was mostly in a file mood, and found some great little files, just the thing I wanted for my novice level jewelry making. I passed up the only slightly damaged adz head for $14, and the complete set of numbered drills ( I really only use the #55 for the stuff I am doing) for $18. A whole bundle of little mill bastards (yes, Dorothy, that really is what you get to call it) cost only $2.00. And I decided against the heavy wood rasp because it was flat, and I kinda wanted one side rounded…for $3!!!..what was I thinking??
What’s so special about this? Well, I guess I could say the place almost glows with the energy of machined, honed, polished and yes even rusted steel. It’s a cathedral..or a place of worship at least…to the glory of steel and to the ingenuity of humans in making such use of an intractable material like Fe. Did you know that one of the first iron works in the new world was on the Saugus, just a bit to the South?
$21.54 later, I went across the street for coffee and to rootle ( a word that I think Aminta made up, and that I find an occasional use for when rummage is too strong) through the bins of seconds. Some beautiful shirts for $4 each that I won’t describe because they are intended for gifts for some of you.
Well, now its morning, 11-7-10, 0745 old time, and 0645 in the glorious fall back time of today. Did you remember? Have you already arrived an hour early? Joanne has a lot of clocks, which she says are all individually set to avoid any synchronous striking. She says she will just stop them for an hour..Fall is easier than the saltation of Spring. The colors are coming alive again as the light increases…I can see enough green to remember what the moss at the base of the beech tree really looks like, and how the carpet of red and yellow leaves that begins at the edge of the clearing really blankets the woods so very completely. Fuji now has a bright orange collar muff, that will hopefully protect her furry little fox body from the unexpected fox hunter. And we will be getting down the road towards Cionas house, and then on to Sister Mary’s for dinner.
Abracos
Alan
Reply Forward
Back in the house, Marty asked ‘Do you think you remember enough four letter words to help with the gutters?’. We joined our interdependent forces to finish the job of clearing the gutters and re-installing the gutter screens. He didn’t fall, and I didn’t let him. Now Marty has a blaze going in the fireplace. The main course is roasting, and Joanne and Sala are working and chatting, rich with their earlier trip to the Camden Yard Sale and at least one other antique and junk market. Brit, the beautiful daughter, and her family will be arriving soon for dinner. Mildly sore muscles, eyes full of lakescapes, and the prospect of dinner; what more can one want?
About hip fractures; Jamie writes to remind me that the bisphosphonate fracture risk is for the relatively rare SUBtrochanteric fractures..not the common Intertrochanteric kind. Jamie, you may not know your quiet example is the reason I walk up 5 flights of stairs at the JMP rather than calling that infernal elevator!!. And you will be pleased to know I ride a bike back and forth to work on the Cape. What a student; what a teacher!! Thanks again, Jamie!
Also, in the day that is gently fading away outside, lies Liberty. This is a town, about 10 miles from here on the road between Augusta and Belfast, and it has, facing each other, two local industries of note. One is Liberty Graphics, home of the 47cent cuppa coffee (good too..pumpkin spice is the special of the season) and the other , in a building that would gladden the heart of Charles Addams, Liberty Tools, a three story collection of the world of hand tools. Oh, there are some power tools as well, but really only the ones that fit in the hand, and mostly it’s wrenches,dies,hammers,pliers, taps,jigs,micrometers,mauls,drivers,cutters,chisels,bits,bites,and probably a bat or too. Order…oh sure, there’s order..most of the hammers are on the left about half way back, and most of the bits are in the second and third on the right (that would be ‘Store Right’, as in ‘Stage Right’..just in case you make it to Liberty and want to try following instructions). But up on the third floor next to the old magazines and in front of the (literally) termite infested loom frame, there is another stash of hammers, and I kept finding wooden carpenters levels in, on, under and next to other stashes throughout the building.
I was mostly in a file mood, and found some great little files, just the thing I wanted for my novice level jewelry making. I passed up the only slightly damaged adz head for $14, and the complete set of numbered drills ( I really only use the #55 for the stuff I am doing) for $18. A whole bundle of little mill bastards (yes, Dorothy, that really is what you get to call it) cost only $2.00. And I decided against the heavy wood rasp because it was flat, and I kinda wanted one side rounded…for $3!!!..what was I thinking??
What’s so special about this? Well, I guess I could say the place almost glows with the energy of machined, honed, polished and yes even rusted steel. It’s a cathedral..or a place of worship at least…to the glory of steel and to the ingenuity of humans in making such use of an intractable material like Fe. Did you know that one of the first iron works in the new world was on the Saugus, just a bit to the South?
$21.54 later, I went across the street for coffee and to rootle ( a word that I think Aminta made up, and that I find an occasional use for when rummage is too strong) through the bins of seconds. Some beautiful shirts for $4 each that I won’t describe because they are intended for gifts for some of you.
Well, now its morning, 11-7-10, 0745 old time, and 0645 in the glorious fall back time of today. Did you remember? Have you already arrived an hour early? Joanne has a lot of clocks, which she says are all individually set to avoid any synchronous striking. She says she will just stop them for an hour..Fall is easier than the saltation of Spring. The colors are coming alive again as the light increases…I can see enough green to remember what the moss at the base of the beech tree really looks like, and how the carpet of red and yellow leaves that begins at the edge of the clearing really blankets the woods so very completely. Fuji now has a bright orange collar muff, that will hopefully protect her furry little fox body from the unexpected fox hunter. And we will be getting down the road towards Cionas house, and then on to Sister Mary’s for dinner.
Abracos
Alan
Reply Forward
Maine 2010 Day 3
11-8-10 0624. Blue Hill ME. Dry and sleepy under the well padded eaves of Mary and Volkers home just above Blue Hill. The storm front has apparently stalled over Eastern Maine, and roiled wetly overhead all night…now, finally, there seem to be only a few pitter pats, and today it’s light at 6. Joanne must have stopped the clocks after all. Strange to think, as so well explored in that book called something relevant like ‘Latitude’, how carefully precise a few humans had to be to figure out what time it was. Marty figures that about the time we all come to fully depend on internet time, someone will hack the satellite system and so he is studying up on his aledades and peloruses and most of all the ultimate in sun shooting equipment, the sextant. Don’t worry, drink your coffee, this isn’t my day to go off into a rhapsody of Sextantology. But it is impressive to read memoirs like Worsley’s ‘Shackleton’s Boat Trip’ and realize that without that instrument, those 28 men would have voyaged in vain.
Now you can buy an orange colored phone sized gadget at LL Bean for a hundred bucks..press the button and it sends out a signal to the Cloud letting anyone who cares to listen in exactly where you are to within 3 meters. Of course, you don’t want to push that button unless you have a healthy bank account; all those rescue efforts are recharged to the rescuee these days. Cutbacks, you know.
So it kinda pre-stormed yesterday all morning. We got up leisurely and had a eggs sausage and toast breakfast, took stock of the state of the universe of dogs, fishing, the Barrier Islands off Carolina, deaths in the family and Rotary’s sponsorship of school years abroad. It smelled like snow when we finally packed back into the car and drove off up the driveway that curves gently through the little conifers and beeches. Back on the well packed dirt of Pond road,we drove past the homemade signs that explain that any gathering or hunting may result in being shot on sight, and into beautiful downtown Searsmont, past the firestation, the general store , and the church, and thus out of town. Route 3 is littered with antique and second hand book stores, but we motored resolutely on to make lunch in Blue Hill.
Well, not quite, First there was Remys, which is no news to Mainers but a midbox you may not have heard of otherwise. That’s was to get the orange collar cover for Fuji, an orange hat apiece for us deers and turkey look alikes, and of course just the pair of Sanita ex Dansco clogs that Sala was looking for. For the footware in-cogniscenti, apparently that which was once Dansco is now Sanita…the lasts’ were passed..if you once fit Dansco, you now want Sanita. And then, right next door as though placed there by the Tempter itself was the Goodwill, in an only slightly less upscale midbox of its own in the middle of what had been, until recently, blueberry bushes. That’s where we got the discretely fuzzy brown warm plaid shirt that Sala wore last night for dinner.
We did, eventually, arrive down the quarter mile of winding driveway off the main road into Blue Hill that leads to Volker’s well kept grounds. The slim and efficient stacks of cut firewood, each with its current iteration of the eternal quest for the perfect waterproof cover held down efficiently adjustable ties fastened to screws set into the lowest tier of logs which has replaced the trendy but ultimately discarded plastic bottles filled with sand that were on trial several years ago. Behind the house, the attachments for the Kubota sit on the graveled assembly pad, waiting the Call of the Tractor. Come snow or sleet or dread of night, the Kubota is ready for Volker to climb aboard and start improving the immediate environment. The driveway sparkles with new topping. Orderly glades are emerging from undergrowth. The little stream burbles and babbles with the influx of water as it enters upstage left and exits downstage right. Sometimes wild turkeys perch in the larger beeches. And the house itself is warm. Unobtrusively, little labor saving devices make life easier. Such as the small orange flag attached to the damper lever on the stove, so that when the discussion of whether the damper is open or closed begins at the dinner table across the room, you can just look.
We visited Cionas beautiful small and energy efficient home, just occupied last year and definitely owner built right down to the brushed cement counters. It’s set in a meadow outside of East Blue Hill, and Ciona was working with a friend to buck up and split wood she had cleared for the house. The superefficient stove was positively bursting out the heat, and we had tea and apple crumble that Jim the Friend had thoughtfully brought. Sala sees a vision of what a winterized addition to the Green House might look like when she roams through Ciona’s house..particularly the usable working pantry and the hot water heating system.
Later, we all dined on Chicken Bog, white flour rolls and cuppycakes for dessert…all gleaned from one of Granma Steinbach’s recipe books. The Bog, which is a savory stew flavored with three kinds of sausage, was Fuji’s favorite. This morning, walking in the cemetery down towards the harbor, Mary had brought one of the cuppycakes, but Fugi was more interested in playing with her miniature tennis ball. It was raining. The wind was cold. A solitary clammer was digging just ahead of the advancing tide on the mudflat below. Fuji ran and ran. I blew the dog whistle. In her own good time, Fuji came dancing back, miraculously still with the ball in her mouth.
Time for breakfast and a wet and stormy saunter by car back down rt 3 and 1 and eventually perhaps back to LL Bean to experience drawing a compound bow.
Now you can buy an orange colored phone sized gadget at LL Bean for a hundred bucks..press the button and it sends out a signal to the Cloud letting anyone who cares to listen in exactly where you are to within 3 meters. Of course, you don’t want to push that button unless you have a healthy bank account; all those rescue efforts are recharged to the rescuee these days. Cutbacks, you know.
So it kinda pre-stormed yesterday all morning. We got up leisurely and had a eggs sausage and toast breakfast, took stock of the state of the universe of dogs, fishing, the Barrier Islands off Carolina, deaths in the family and Rotary’s sponsorship of school years abroad. It smelled like snow when we finally packed back into the car and drove off up the driveway that curves gently through the little conifers and beeches. Back on the well packed dirt of Pond road,we drove past the homemade signs that explain that any gathering or hunting may result in being shot on sight, and into beautiful downtown Searsmont, past the firestation, the general store , and the church, and thus out of town. Route 3 is littered with antique and second hand book stores, but we motored resolutely on to make lunch in Blue Hill.
Well, not quite, First there was Remys, which is no news to Mainers but a midbox you may not have heard of otherwise. That’s was to get the orange collar cover for Fuji, an orange hat apiece for us deers and turkey look alikes, and of course just the pair of Sanita ex Dansco clogs that Sala was looking for. For the footware in-cogniscenti, apparently that which was once Dansco is now Sanita…the lasts’ were passed..if you once fit Dansco, you now want Sanita. And then, right next door as though placed there by the Tempter itself was the Goodwill, in an only slightly less upscale midbox of its own in the middle of what had been, until recently, blueberry bushes. That’s where we got the discretely fuzzy brown warm plaid shirt that Sala wore last night for dinner.
We did, eventually, arrive down the quarter mile of winding driveway off the main road into Blue Hill that leads to Volker’s well kept grounds. The slim and efficient stacks of cut firewood, each with its current iteration of the eternal quest for the perfect waterproof cover held down efficiently adjustable ties fastened to screws set into the lowest tier of logs which has replaced the trendy but ultimately discarded plastic bottles filled with sand that were on trial several years ago. Behind the house, the attachments for the Kubota sit on the graveled assembly pad, waiting the Call of the Tractor. Come snow or sleet or dread of night, the Kubota is ready for Volker to climb aboard and start improving the immediate environment. The driveway sparkles with new topping. Orderly glades are emerging from undergrowth. The little stream burbles and babbles with the influx of water as it enters upstage left and exits downstage right. Sometimes wild turkeys perch in the larger beeches. And the house itself is warm. Unobtrusively, little labor saving devices make life easier. Such as the small orange flag attached to the damper lever on the stove, so that when the discussion of whether the damper is open or closed begins at the dinner table across the room, you can just look.
We visited Cionas beautiful small and energy efficient home, just occupied last year and definitely owner built right down to the brushed cement counters. It’s set in a meadow outside of East Blue Hill, and Ciona was working with a friend to buck up and split wood she had cleared for the house. The superefficient stove was positively bursting out the heat, and we had tea and apple crumble that Jim the Friend had thoughtfully brought. Sala sees a vision of what a winterized addition to the Green House might look like when she roams through Ciona’s house..particularly the usable working pantry and the hot water heating system.
Later, we all dined on Chicken Bog, white flour rolls and cuppycakes for dessert…all gleaned from one of Granma Steinbach’s recipe books. The Bog, which is a savory stew flavored with three kinds of sausage, was Fuji’s favorite. This morning, walking in the cemetery down towards the harbor, Mary had brought one of the cuppycakes, but Fugi was more interested in playing with her miniature tennis ball. It was raining. The wind was cold. A solitary clammer was digging just ahead of the advancing tide on the mudflat below. Fuji ran and ran. I blew the dog whistle. In her own good time, Fuji came dancing back, miraculously still with the ball in her mouth.
Time for breakfast and a wet and stormy saunter by car back down rt 3 and 1 and eventually perhaps back to LL Bean to experience drawing a compound bow.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Ethiopia 2010 Day 16
10-15-2010 0800 EST 19 Buzzards Bay Ave Woods Hole MA. Well, if it quacks like home and it smells like home and it feels like home then...then it is! Back into the windy quackings of a `noreaster, but a kind of friendly version of one..a lot of water and wind during the night, and now mostly wind. Fuji the little dog was happy to see me, and it was quite a kick to drink the water out of the tap. Probably the water in Addis was fine, but since "everyone"said not to drink it, I didn't .But then, I didn't do malaria prophylaxis either; never actually saw ,heard or felt a mosquito, and we didn't go low
The 6 hours in Business Class alta luxe of the Lufthansa Frankfurt airport, which does not actually have any wurst of any kind, but does have a very upscale 8 option button coffee and cocoa dispenser, was not that bad.I got a of work done comparing the two proposed medical education curricula that I have been tasked with comparing,and also sorted some of of the pictures taken. (Usually I just do the electronic equivalent of sliding them into a box on top of all the others from previous rolls). And the trip on across the North Atlantic was relatively short and sweet...business class, it makes me a little sorry I am not in business.As it happens,the bus to Woods Hole was expected 15 minutes after I got through customs. I made kind of a point of not knowing exactly when...I'm trying to figure out ways to decrease travel anxiety, and not knowing things like that turns out, for me, to be essential. Then Ray, my Woods Hole neighbor, got on the bus at South Station, coming back from a day of self directed research at the Harvard Library, so I learned more about his underwater archeology as I started falling asleep towards the end of what was actually a 24 hr travel time.
So waiting on the computer was a note from Suzanne that makes it clear I didn't write anything about my visit to the ER at St Pauls Hospital, which should have gone into the Day 14 dispatch.
This was in no way a scientific study, but having hung around Emergency Rooms and Departments (since they have grown into almost small hospitals of their own in the USA) in various parts of the world, I wanted to see what was happening at St Pauls, one of the better developed and staffed hospitals in the Ethiopian public health system. This is the hospital whose general medical curriculum I am reviewing also. (It was initiated by Haile Selassie, and has a large tryptich painting in the front entry way,showing Ras himself in various poses of lifegiving and bountitude). As we all know, if you want to talk ER docs, come in the morning. If you want to see what they do, come at night. So it was already dark when we arrived, and there was already a crowd. The ER is an add on..single story, about 800 square feet including the roofed but open waiting area to the left, and the triage area inside t he door to the right. Further inside, there's a kind of multipurpose moving around area, with the nursing station to the right, and a room labeled Nurses Duty Room, which looked like an office cum sleep room, and was closed. The multipurpose room stretches across the whole 30 feet of the building, and leading back from are a hallway with small rooms to the left, and a 12 bed double sided open ward with curtains, to the right. Guerneys to the left, sit-able patients to the right. Behind the desk, which if the entrance is to the North, is on the West side running E-W, with the open ward, running NS across the multipurpose room right in front of it.
Yes, it might be easier to send a picture, but we're getting to why I didn't save any pictures.
The joint was jumping, although no acute street trauma arrived while I was there. (Ambulances are associated with hospitals, and not a big presence...very few sirens in Addis..my guess is that most of the drivers are still professionals, speeds aren't that great yet, so the amount of closed head injuries per capita is still low...but just a guess. In Hanoi, as they added motorized trishaws, things got very bad...and when we were there 15 years ago, they still didn't have a working CT, so I helped with the first and only burr hole placement I've ever done, based on clinical exam as to where to drill the hole). There were two or three interns..meaning docs enrolled in the medical education program who have been certified as physicians (each medical school does its own, there is no national standard) and a resident, plus an older man in a white coat and hospital nametag whom I didn't meet who acted like an attending, but definitely was not making the disposition decisions. There were several young women in green scrubs who were acting like nurses (lots of moving around, hands on both charts and patients, putting charts in front of doctors), but not speaking Amharic mean't that I wasnt overhearing any conversations to be sure. What the nurses were not doing was procedures...the person I saw missing three IV insertions was certainly doing all procedures, and perhaps was a more advanced nurse rather than a rotating advanced medical student. Name tags were not much in evidence.
They use a 'surgical side'/ 'medical side' system...very common everywhere and easy to use. Charts go up into two holders on the nursing station desk as medical or surgical.They move from in to out depending on progress of the diagnosis and treatment, and may be filed in a bank of chart holders along one wall, for example as t hey wait for paper results. Lab work is slow, taking minutes to as long as an hour. This lab wasn't doing lactates, for example. A basic complete blood count might take 30 minutes. Plus,probably due to the not very complete safety net of medical expense coverage, at least in one case the family had to go across the way and apparently purchase, or sign for, the gloves, iv tubing, fluid and medication to treat their loved one. They brought it back. by hand.But the actual catheter, the ones that they missed with three times, came froma drawer behind the nursing station.
What was the matter with people? A obviously very ill manwith a major pneumonia, prob HIV plus tB. A man with an oxygen cannula taped up one nostril breathing at a rate of 30/min and with 8 meds on his home med list. Two men with painful abdomens and high white counts. A woman in her third trimester, first baby,who didn't feel good. An older woman whose right foot didn't smell good and with a fever. In other words, some of the same things as are the matter with us in any hospital here.
But don't get injured in Ethiopia,not yet. And, come to think of it, if you have to get sick emergently, get sick in Oakland.. The system I saw is a lot like the state of ER's in the USA in the 60's...before EMTALA ( 1986) the transportation based law that provided the impetus for much of the emergency system we see today. Emergency medicine everywhere has always been driven by neglect...since post-war periods in the US, our non support of routine neighborhood care has ensured ER visits for non emergent situations..while EMTALA ensures penalties for not providing care for medical problems (...the 'AL' part of 'EMTALA' refers to 'Active Labor',and one of the major triggers for that happened on my watch, so to speak, when our health plan operator could not find a specific woman on the list of people certified for care, and a private hospital decided to transfer a woman in active labor, whose baby died. Vale,Sharon). There will be changes...the note from Suzanne says they are involved in a project to assist with emergency medicine in Ethiopia..but the changes aren't there yet. In most Ethiopian hospitals, the ER is just that, a room where you come with an emergency.
As I was hanging out, muttering into my Flip camcorder, using the sound as a voice recorder and not paying attention to the picture part, a man about my age who had been in a group with one of the patients (Crowd control is as difficult as it would be at Highland in Oakland if there was no door on the ER there) came over and demanded 'who are you?' I had my name tag on,but not a white coat. He spoke not too much english,but was clearly concerned about my presence. Crowds in every country gather rapidly in situations like that. Luckily, before a major incident occurred, another family member with good english started translating,and it turns out he was only concerned that I might be taking pictures. And thats why, for good ethical reasons, I dont have any pictures to share.
Level of care? Hmm...certainly way better than Delhi 15 years ago, or Jamaica 20 years ago. Probably in terms of infrastructure about like Garberville CA in the 60's...definitely not up to Jackson Memorial or Mission Emergency in the late 60's. But the diagnoses I heard were right on, and a training plan that included nursing training and job descriptions comparable to ER nursing in the US will fit right in. A few used CT scanners would help. ..St Pauls has only really had an ER for a few years, and just started their residence training program. And I am hoping that as a country they will look for something like CALS, the Combined Advanced Life support system of teaching and certfication that was worked out by some family docs in Minnesota...instead of the overly possessive non integrated combination of ATLS, ACLS, and PALS that I had to struggle with in my life as an ER doc.
So the 'noreaster is still prowling around, its time to join Sala for breakfast (what a joy!)and then go check the boat for water level before settling down to my comparison work...on the other side of the world.
But somehow,I don't think the next dispatch from Addis is that far off!
salama
alan
The 6 hours in Business Class alta luxe of the Lufthansa Frankfurt airport, which does not actually have any wurst of any kind, but does have a very upscale 8 option button coffee and cocoa dispenser, was not that bad.I got a of work done comparing the two proposed medical education curricula that I have been tasked with comparing,and also sorted some of of the pictures taken. (Usually I just do the electronic equivalent of sliding them into a box on top of all the others from previous rolls). And the trip on across the North Atlantic was relatively short and sweet...business class, it makes me a little sorry I am not in business.As it happens,the bus to Woods Hole was expected 15 minutes after I got through customs. I made kind of a point of not knowing exactly when...I'm trying to figure out ways to decrease travel anxiety, and not knowing things like that turns out, for me, to be essential. Then Ray, my Woods Hole neighbor, got on the bus at South Station, coming back from a day of self directed research at the Harvard Library, so I learned more about his underwater archeology as I started falling asleep towards the end of what was actually a 24 hr travel time.
So waiting on the computer was a note from Suzanne that makes it clear I didn't write anything about my visit to the ER at St Pauls Hospital, which should have gone into the Day 14 dispatch.
This was in no way a scientific study, but having hung around Emergency Rooms and Departments (since they have grown into almost small hospitals of their own in the USA) in various parts of the world, I wanted to see what was happening at St Pauls, one of the better developed and staffed hospitals in the Ethiopian public health system. This is the hospital whose general medical curriculum I am reviewing also. (It was initiated by Haile Selassie, and has a large tryptich painting in the front entry way,showing Ras himself in various poses of lifegiving and bountitude). As we all know, if you want to talk ER docs, come in the morning. If you want to see what they do, come at night. So it was already dark when we arrived, and there was already a crowd. The ER is an add on..single story, about 800 square feet including the roofed but open waiting area to the left, and the triage area inside t he door to the right. Further inside, there's a kind of multipurpose moving around area, with the nursing station to the right, and a room labeled Nurses Duty Room, which looked like an office cum sleep room, and was closed. The multipurpose room stretches across the whole 30 feet of the building, and leading back from are a hallway with small rooms to the left, and a 12 bed double sided open ward with curtains, to the right. Guerneys to the left, sit-able patients to the right. Behind the desk, which if the entrance is to the North, is on the West side running E-W, with the open ward, running NS across the multipurpose room right in front of it.
Yes, it might be easier to send a picture, but we're getting to why I didn't save any pictures.
The joint was jumping, although no acute street trauma arrived while I was there. (Ambulances are associated with hospitals, and not a big presence...very few sirens in Addis..my guess is that most of the drivers are still professionals, speeds aren't that great yet, so the amount of closed head injuries per capita is still low...but just a guess. In Hanoi, as they added motorized trishaws, things got very bad...and when we were there 15 years ago, they still didn't have a working CT, so I helped with the first and only burr hole placement I've ever done, based on clinical exam as to where to drill the hole). There were two or three interns..meaning docs enrolled in the medical education program who have been certified as physicians (each medical school does its own, there is no national standard) and a resident, plus an older man in a white coat and hospital nametag whom I didn't meet who acted like an attending, but definitely was not making the disposition decisions. There were several young women in green scrubs who were acting like nurses (lots of moving around, hands on both charts and patients, putting charts in front of doctors), but not speaking Amharic mean't that I wasnt overhearing any conversations to be sure. What the nurses were not doing was procedures...the person I saw missing three IV insertions was certainly doing all procedures, and perhaps was a more advanced nurse rather than a rotating advanced medical student. Name tags were not much in evidence.
They use a 'surgical side'/ 'medical side' system...very common everywhere and easy to use. Charts go up into two holders on the nursing station desk as medical or surgical.They move from in to out depending on progress of the diagnosis and treatment, and may be filed in a bank of chart holders along one wall, for example as t hey wait for paper results. Lab work is slow, taking minutes to as long as an hour. This lab wasn't doing lactates, for example. A basic complete blood count might take 30 minutes. Plus,probably due to the not very complete safety net of medical expense coverage, at least in one case the family had to go across the way and apparently purchase, or sign for, the gloves, iv tubing, fluid and medication to treat their loved one. They brought it back. by hand.But the actual catheter, the ones that they missed with three times, came froma drawer behind the nursing station.
What was the matter with people? A obviously very ill manwith a major pneumonia, prob HIV plus tB. A man with an oxygen cannula taped up one nostril breathing at a rate of 30/min and with 8 meds on his home med list. Two men with painful abdomens and high white counts. A woman in her third trimester, first baby,who didn't feel good. An older woman whose right foot didn't smell good and with a fever. In other words, some of the same things as are the matter with us in any hospital here.
But don't get injured in Ethiopia,not yet. And, come to think of it, if you have to get sick emergently, get sick in Oakland.. The system I saw is a lot like the state of ER's in the USA in the 60's...before EMTALA ( 1986) the transportation based law that provided the impetus for much of the emergency system we see today. Emergency medicine everywhere has always been driven by neglect...since post-war periods in the US, our non support of routine neighborhood care has ensured ER visits for non emergent situations..while EMTALA ensures penalties for not providing care for medical problems (...the 'AL' part of 'EMTALA' refers to 'Active Labor',and one of the major triggers for that happened on my watch, so to speak, when our health plan operator could not find a specific woman on the list of people certified for care, and a private hospital decided to transfer a woman in active labor, whose baby died. Vale,Sharon). There will be changes...the note from Suzanne says they are involved in a project to assist with emergency medicine in Ethiopia..but the changes aren't there yet. In most Ethiopian hospitals, the ER is just that, a room where you come with an emergency.
As I was hanging out, muttering into my Flip camcorder, using the sound as a voice recorder and not paying attention to the picture part, a man about my age who had been in a group with one of the patients (Crowd control is as difficult as it would be at Highland in Oakland if there was no door on the ER there) came over and demanded 'who are you?' I had my name tag on,but not a white coat. He spoke not too much english,but was clearly concerned about my presence. Crowds in every country gather rapidly in situations like that. Luckily, before a major incident occurred, another family member with good english started translating,and it turns out he was only concerned that I might be taking pictures. And thats why, for good ethical reasons, I dont have any pictures to share.
Level of care? Hmm...certainly way better than Delhi 15 years ago, or Jamaica 20 years ago. Probably in terms of infrastructure about like Garberville CA in the 60's...definitely not up to Jackson Memorial or Mission Emergency in the late 60's. But the diagnoses I heard were right on, and a training plan that included nursing training and job descriptions comparable to ER nursing in the US will fit right in. A few used CT scanners would help. ..St Pauls has only really had an ER for a few years, and just started their residence training program. And I am hoping that as a country they will look for something like CALS, the Combined Advanced Life support system of teaching and certfication that was worked out by some family docs in Minnesota...instead of the overly possessive non integrated combination of ATLS, ACLS, and PALS that I had to struggle with in my life as an ER doc.
So the 'noreaster is still prowling around, its time to join Sala for breakfast (what a joy!)and then go check the boat for water level before settling down to my comparison work...on the other side of the world.
But somehow,I don't think the next dispatch from Addis is that far off!
salama
alan
Ethiopia 2010 Day 15
Tekemt 3, 2003 0900 Bole Apartment, Addis. Oh, did I forget to say that we are in the year 2003? As you can read ( http://members.shaw.ca/ethiocal/ ) the calendar used here makes great sense for equatorial lands...you've just been pushed into the year 2010 by some Popish guy named Julian...think how different it would be if you were in the year 2003, as I am.
I made my maybe last visit to the family who live along the wall near the cathedral. All female, three kids and mom. Each time I notice more things, now that the initial shock of a whole small family living along a wall is easing. The kids are more relaxed. They dont seem to have any of the diseases of neglect. The little ones cough is gone. And they werent allergic to peanuts, thank you for cautioning me, Ellie. Today I had some of Kevin's left over loudly colored sweetened breakfast cereal (Puff-Pops or something), which generated intense interest. I'm glad that movie stars, who can, occasionally just gather up people like this and take them home. It doesnt solve any problems on a national level, but is that any reason to not alleviate suffering? I try to emulate Aminta...just give away what you can afford to give away. I think it fits with what i continue to read in Suzuki Roshi...I am also trying to work in a way that consumes the personalized traces of the construction process...to burn yourself up, leaving no trace in the finished work. Another take on the creative process.
They're down to two huge green John Deere tractors at the OiLibya gas station temporary storage. Presumably they are part of a Saudi sponsored rice farming project. I sure hope that doesnt intercalate with the big dam project. When several corporate sponsored schemes fit into a single resource extracting money making little value added much environmental destroyed picture, NOT doing said project to produce said picture becomes very difficult.
The power went off during the night sometime...long enough to soften up the sausages some previous occupant left in the apartment freezer, and it was still off when I came back from the walk.So I used up all my battery working on the power point, which I would like to finish before leaving. Its so helpful for people to have some more accurate idea of the magic, the 'emergent properties' of the student centered small group process that I've become quite passionate about sharing with anyone who will listen. Being there is, of course, the best. But any experience with things like this can be helpful.
Well, I got a chance yesterday at St Pauls. St Pauls was, as I think I mentioned, initiated by Haile Selassie, and moved to its present site above Merkato in the late 70's. Missionaries also contributed to its construction. Its a multi story hospital that, except for the low level of lighting that is preferred here indoors, might fit into a comparable era of building anywhere in the USA. It has a well developed internet 'cloud', thanks in part to the Tulane University initiated project that brought me here. And it has a medical school, with a curriculum that is lecture and organ system module based, as are the majority of medical schools everywhere in the english speaking world I know. The curriculum is very progressive (and only a few years old) in having very early clinical experience, a robust portfolio keeping and reflective practice requirement, and an admission process that encourages women and students from, literally, Afar.
So why dont they just adopt such a curriculum for the nation? Well, that might happen. So I jumped at the chance to attend a lecture in Module 4..which features Neurosciences..rather like the Brain and Behavior component of the UCSF curriculum.
Lectures are given in the School of Nursing building. I arrived for class at 8:30, but was told that the lecture was actually scheduled for 10:30 because the hall was being used for something else. So Direr, the driver of the Toyota SUV that is used by the Tulane program, and I went off to look for a small piece of cheap cheap ikash luggage that I needed to transport back the touristical items I've managed to accumulate. Direr and I get along well, so I understood at once that I needed to keep my narrow white face in the suv while he found the item, otherwise the price would inexorably double...nothing he could do about that. And so now I own a locally made synthetic fiber gym bag that thinks its an Adidas but seems more likely to be an Addis, given what I have been told about trademark enforcement. Then we drove up the hill, through the local markets, past the women woodcutters carrying large loads of eucalyptus branches, past the stands of eucalyptus that are parklike cleared by such women, past the small herds of donkeys with their humans trotting behind, and eventually to the Road from Hell in Heaven...worst road, best air, best view (of smog, unfortunately, its unmistakable from on top) and a nice break from city streets. Then back down again, arriving in time for a machiata coffee before going to class. As with any hospital/medical school, there are plenty of small coffee places unofficially snuggled up close. Then I went along, asked for help in finding the lecture hall for module 4, and was guided by a tall beautiful really blue black skinned man with decorative scars on his face and gentle perfect english who must have been 20 if that. A student.
The class, about 80 of them, were gathered in moveable student deskchairs in a lecture hall that could have held twice that many, but with low ceiling and almost no lighting (the flourescent fixtures were burned out). The chalk blackboard running across the front loomed in the dimness, unreadable. There was plenty of light outside, but little coming through the small windows. The lecturer, in a white coat with stethescope on neck, was explaining dress codes and responsibilities...the module was just starting. When he asked for questions, and a general buzzing started, I made my way up to talk to him. Fitzumberhan Girma is an MD, recent graduate, and hopes to continue as a medical educator. What now, I asked. The lecturer is coming...in about an hour...but the first real lecture will be tomorrow. What will the students do now, I asked, looking at the animatedly conversing group. Oh,I will keep them here for some time.
Hmmm. Well, my personal deal with myself is not to try anything strange for the first week in a new place, but this is day 15...so...
'Would you like to try a communication experiment with them?' I ask my new colleague. ' It would only take about 20 minutes...I can explain to you, and if you think it would be good, we could do it?' He agrees, and so, as those of you who know the contents of my teaching trickbag can guess...I did a dyad!
It takes very little time to explain how the exercise of listening and talking works; make a group of 2, one person talks for a minute while the other listens, then on a signal, switch roles. At the end, I extemporized, I'll ask you to combine in a group of 4, and at the end, I will ask one person from the group to report. OK
Talk about what? Talk about 'what I know about the skull' (the topic of the first lecture). Then, in a group of 4, choose one word that conveys what you would most like to learn about the skull.
Well, it took a little longer to set up, of couse. To get them laughing, I tried some amharic, and it always gets a laugh to make an agreement about no hitting, before asking them to agree to really talk and really listen, not combine the two. And they laughed when I said if they knew nothing about the skull, they could spend a minute sitting in silence.
If its possible to fail in a dyad, assuming basic language competence, I have certainly never seen it happen.
But whats the experiment?
Well, I wanted to see if this group of young students would get into it. Of course they did, with the usual happy increase in noise level. I put in the group of four process to produce a product, the one word...and got a great selection..ethmoid bone, cavernous sinus, cranial vault, petrous bone, eustacian tube, sphenoid sinus, frontal bone...and so on...
But I wanted to go a little farther, to see if some storytelling by an expert would be appealing. Because an expert, me in this case, can of course take any of those words and spin out a clinically or science based story about their personal experience with sphenoid infections (one of the more difficult diagnoses I have made, along with cavernous sinus problems), or how eustacian tube dysfunction leads to the clinical dilemma as to whether to treat middle ear infections with antibiotics. Do the students remember it all? Of course not. But it gives an expert a chance to jumpstart their lecture, and just by keeping a list on the board, and occasionally ticking off one of the student requests, it creates some back and forth. The next step, as Kosta did for years, is to create groups within the lecture that meet each session for a period of time within the lecture period to discuss what they have just heard. And all of these, I believe, are stepping stones to student centered inquiry directed learning.
But suppose there arent enough experts in the country? Suppose lectures devolve into boring recitations of recently boned up material given by a GP who is adverse to lecturing in the first place? It may be 'traditional' curriculum in the first world, but in other worlds, perhaps in Ethiopia, the idea of creating the infrastrucure to support a 'traditional' curriculum in as many medical schools as they need is, perhaps, not the best plan. But I guess it sounds good.....
I got some nice applause at the end, which I'm not deluded enough to think means much, but the students who came up ask questions afterwards did seem to appreciate the exercise. And I dont need to tell you how amazing looking and how alive THEY all were!!!
Well, I've used up all the time for dispatches on medical education. But actually, aside from a few machiato breaks with Oluma and a wonderful lunch with Yodit and her big brother who are part time farmers as well as educators and businessmen, I didnt do anything else. It will be much the same today, and tonight...the 11:55 to Frankfurt, a 6 hour layover (but thank god for the business class lounge with its showers and its edibles and its plush although Germanic banquettes with internet access), and then back to Boston and on to Cape Cod.
Aloha
Alan
I made my maybe last visit to the family who live along the wall near the cathedral. All female, three kids and mom. Each time I notice more things, now that the initial shock of a whole small family living along a wall is easing. The kids are more relaxed. They dont seem to have any of the diseases of neglect. The little ones cough is gone. And they werent allergic to peanuts, thank you for cautioning me, Ellie. Today I had some of Kevin's left over loudly colored sweetened breakfast cereal (Puff-Pops or something), which generated intense interest. I'm glad that movie stars, who can, occasionally just gather up people like this and take them home. It doesnt solve any problems on a national level, but is that any reason to not alleviate suffering? I try to emulate Aminta...just give away what you can afford to give away. I think it fits with what i continue to read in Suzuki Roshi...I am also trying to work in a way that consumes the personalized traces of the construction process...to burn yourself up, leaving no trace in the finished work. Another take on the creative process.
They're down to two huge green John Deere tractors at the OiLibya gas station temporary storage. Presumably they are part of a Saudi sponsored rice farming project. I sure hope that doesnt intercalate with the big dam project. When several corporate sponsored schemes fit into a single resource extracting money making little value added much environmental destroyed picture, NOT doing said project to produce said picture becomes very difficult.
The power went off during the night sometime...long enough to soften up the sausages some previous occupant left in the apartment freezer, and it was still off when I came back from the walk.So I used up all my battery working on the power point, which I would like to finish before leaving. Its so helpful for people to have some more accurate idea of the magic, the 'emergent properties' of the student centered small group process that I've become quite passionate about sharing with anyone who will listen. Being there is, of course, the best. But any experience with things like this can be helpful.
Well, I got a chance yesterday at St Pauls. St Pauls was, as I think I mentioned, initiated by Haile Selassie, and moved to its present site above Merkato in the late 70's. Missionaries also contributed to its construction. Its a multi story hospital that, except for the low level of lighting that is preferred here indoors, might fit into a comparable era of building anywhere in the USA. It has a well developed internet 'cloud', thanks in part to the Tulane University initiated project that brought me here. And it has a medical school, with a curriculum that is lecture and organ system module based, as are the majority of medical schools everywhere in the english speaking world I know. The curriculum is very progressive (and only a few years old) in having very early clinical experience, a robust portfolio keeping and reflective practice requirement, and an admission process that encourages women and students from, literally, Afar.
So why dont they just adopt such a curriculum for the nation? Well, that might happen. So I jumped at the chance to attend a lecture in Module 4..which features Neurosciences..rather like the Brain and Behavior component of the UCSF curriculum.
Lectures are given in the School of Nursing building. I arrived for class at 8:30, but was told that the lecture was actually scheduled for 10:30 because the hall was being used for something else. So Direr, the driver of the Toyota SUV that is used by the Tulane program, and I went off to look for a small piece of cheap cheap ikash luggage that I needed to transport back the touristical items I've managed to accumulate. Direr and I get along well, so I understood at once that I needed to keep my narrow white face in the suv while he found the item, otherwise the price would inexorably double...nothing he could do about that. And so now I own a locally made synthetic fiber gym bag that thinks its an Adidas but seems more likely to be an Addis, given what I have been told about trademark enforcement. Then we drove up the hill, through the local markets, past the women woodcutters carrying large loads of eucalyptus branches, past the stands of eucalyptus that are parklike cleared by such women, past the small herds of donkeys with their humans trotting behind, and eventually to the Road from Hell in Heaven...worst road, best air, best view (of smog, unfortunately, its unmistakable from on top) and a nice break from city streets. Then back down again, arriving in time for a machiata coffee before going to class. As with any hospital/medical school, there are plenty of small coffee places unofficially snuggled up close. Then I went along, asked for help in finding the lecture hall for module 4, and was guided by a tall beautiful really blue black skinned man with decorative scars on his face and gentle perfect english who must have been 20 if that. A student.
The class, about 80 of them, were gathered in moveable student deskchairs in a lecture hall that could have held twice that many, but with low ceiling and almost no lighting (the flourescent fixtures were burned out). The chalk blackboard running across the front loomed in the dimness, unreadable. There was plenty of light outside, but little coming through the small windows. The lecturer, in a white coat with stethescope on neck, was explaining dress codes and responsibilities...the module was just starting. When he asked for questions, and a general buzzing started, I made my way up to talk to him. Fitzumberhan Girma is an MD, recent graduate, and hopes to continue as a medical educator. What now, I asked. The lecturer is coming...in about an hour...but the first real lecture will be tomorrow. What will the students do now, I asked, looking at the animatedly conversing group. Oh,I will keep them here for some time.
Hmmm. Well, my personal deal with myself is not to try anything strange for the first week in a new place, but this is day 15...so...
'Would you like to try a communication experiment with them?' I ask my new colleague. ' It would only take about 20 minutes...I can explain to you, and if you think it would be good, we could do it?' He agrees, and so, as those of you who know the contents of my teaching trickbag can guess...I did a dyad!
It takes very little time to explain how the exercise of listening and talking works; make a group of 2, one person talks for a minute while the other listens, then on a signal, switch roles. At the end, I extemporized, I'll ask you to combine in a group of 4, and at the end, I will ask one person from the group to report. OK
Talk about what? Talk about 'what I know about the skull' (the topic of the first lecture). Then, in a group of 4, choose one word that conveys what you would most like to learn about the skull.
Well, it took a little longer to set up, of couse. To get them laughing, I tried some amharic, and it always gets a laugh to make an agreement about no hitting, before asking them to agree to really talk and really listen, not combine the two. And they laughed when I said if they knew nothing about the skull, they could spend a minute sitting in silence.
If its possible to fail in a dyad, assuming basic language competence, I have certainly never seen it happen.
But whats the experiment?
Well, I wanted to see if this group of young students would get into it. Of course they did, with the usual happy increase in noise level. I put in the group of four process to produce a product, the one word...and got a great selection..ethmoid bone, cavernous sinus, cranial vault, petrous bone, eustacian tube, sphenoid sinus, frontal bone...and so on...
But I wanted to go a little farther, to see if some storytelling by an expert would be appealing. Because an expert, me in this case, can of course take any of those words and spin out a clinically or science based story about their personal experience with sphenoid infections (one of the more difficult diagnoses I have made, along with cavernous sinus problems), or how eustacian tube dysfunction leads to the clinical dilemma as to whether to treat middle ear infections with antibiotics. Do the students remember it all? Of course not. But it gives an expert a chance to jumpstart their lecture, and just by keeping a list on the board, and occasionally ticking off one of the student requests, it creates some back and forth. The next step, as Kosta did for years, is to create groups within the lecture that meet each session for a period of time within the lecture period to discuss what they have just heard. And all of these, I believe, are stepping stones to student centered inquiry directed learning.
But suppose there arent enough experts in the country? Suppose lectures devolve into boring recitations of recently boned up material given by a GP who is adverse to lecturing in the first place? It may be 'traditional' curriculum in the first world, but in other worlds, perhaps in Ethiopia, the idea of creating the infrastrucure to support a 'traditional' curriculum in as many medical schools as they need is, perhaps, not the best plan. But I guess it sounds good.....
I got some nice applause at the end, which I'm not deluded enough to think means much, but the students who came up ask questions afterwards did seem to appreciate the exercise. And I dont need to tell you how amazing looking and how alive THEY all were!!!
Well, I've used up all the time for dispatches on medical education. But actually, aside from a few machiato breaks with Oluma and a wonderful lunch with Yodit and her big brother who are part time farmers as well as educators and businessmen, I didnt do anything else. It will be much the same today, and tonight...the 11:55 to Frankfurt, a 6 hour layover (but thank god for the business class lounge with its showers and its edibles and its plush although Germanic banquettes with internet access), and then back to Boston and on to Cape Cod.
Aloha
Alan
Ethiopia 2010 Day 14
10-12-2010 0720 Bole Apartment, Addis.
Yesterday I headed out in the SUV with Direr, the driver and an empty back seat; poof, no team, they have flown away. So with the improved clarity a shotgun seat brings, I immediately started correcting his driving…no; kidding!! Hes a great driver, and believe me, my life hinges on it. Its nowhere like India, but it is intense, and one of the rules seems to be the same; IF YOU ARE AHEAD, YOU ARE AHEAD. This simplifies events in unregulated situations, but in roundabouts/traffic circles it makes it a bit hair raising. However, as with all situations, Ethiopians handle it with a kind of gentle aplomb. Not a long of language lavished on the situation. And speaking of that…
Am I getting too old for a new language? Writing this, back at the apartment, I try to count…’And’ (one)..and I am stuck. What happened to ‘hulet’, that should be right there doing its dance beside ‘and’ , and for that matter to ‘sost, arat, and amIst’? Only yesterday, I was prattling away with wordy expressions like ‘sost michina’ and ‘and dinknesh so’ (excuse my non phonetics, any real Amharic speakers) and now I can’t get past ‘and’. Well, I seem to be ok with ‘dehna aderk’ and sometimes with ‘dehna ider’ at the beginning and end of the day, and ‘salama’ for pretty much everything in between. But for the rest, I feel like Hazel, the character in ‘Cannery Row’ who simply liked to listen to the flow of speech, and structured his social interactions purely to keep the flow coming.
If there is an enraged version, a road rage version, a NY Taxidriver version of this language, I sure haven’t heard it yet. The drivers or pedestrians or bystanders who you might expect to be getting into it in Chicago seem devoted to helpful solutions.
I had gotten up to Oluma’s office about 9:15, as we had arranged. The beautiful askari with the very Ethiopian gap between her two front teeth in the semi military uniform at the front desk smiled. The elevator was working. Oluma was at his desk. We started to scan through the St Paul’s Medical School curriculum, and then he remembered that he wanted me to go to a Health Center and Health Post. Actually, I had previously suggested it, to try to complete in some very un-thorough way my experience of the depth of the Ethiopian health system.
Oluma left to arrange the visit, leaving me with Birna, the economist attached to the project. We continued through the written curriculum, the first time I had really done this. Very well thought out, and although driven by lectures in discrete modules based mostly on organ systems, there is a communications and cultural curriculum and a skills curriculum that are structurally the equal of UCL/RFH in London, and close to the system used by UCSF. Plus, an explicit and very strong requirement for a reflective portfolio that includes specific mention of projects such as recording intractions with a family with a newborn, and a family that has experience disability. Additionally, the St Pauls admission process has a specific metric regarding gender and origin that should facilitate a ‘pipeline’ encouraging student school leavers (the end of HS, when most English speaking countries begin medical school) and post-bac students (those who have a undergraduate degree, which is when the USA begins medical school) to apply. Wow!!!
(There is a history for St Pauls, and I don’t really know enough to comment, but yes there was an expatriot in the mix. The current dean is Dr M, who attended the meetings we had last week…I described him as a perfect ‘Dean figure’..distinguished bearing and dress, and a gentle reflective accepting manner. )
We were working along through this, and I was beginning to fantasize of working with Birna to construct not only an excel based table to compare the two side by side with live links to the actual documents, but an excel model to cost out the two program. At that point, Oluma returned, a bit breathless from the trip up the stairs, and announced the car was ready, right now, to take me to the health posts…I was to be meeting L, one of the projects field workers, since she routinely visited them.
We barreled along out on Bole, and then turned onto the Ring Road, all this becoming somewhat familiar by now, and then again onto the road towards Adoma and beyond it, on the Red Sea, Djbouti. ( I can still only guess at the complexity of using Eritrean ports to ship Ethiopian goods, but Djbouti has been a port for Ethiopia for years.)
During the next 4 hours, we visited a Zonal/District hospital, a Health Center, and a Health Post, all in the vicinity of Bishops**…which I immediately transliterated to ‘Bishops Castle’, a town of perhaps comparable size in Shropshire that I happen to know because Tom and Molly have a home there. Talked to the administrator at the hospital and Health Center, and to one of the two health extension workers stationed at the Health Post. If I have time tonight, I will fix up a picture of Almaz, the 20 something that I interviewed via a translator (she was reticent about her English).
The one major thing all the visits had in common was enthusiasm. The hospital had a trained MBA as CEO, the Health Center was administered by a grizzled very reserved man who had started working there when it opened several decades ago and had recently become chief, and at the health post everyone seemed to do everything...except of course only the extension workers actually saw, visited or touched patients (thats why they are all women).
Another was sense of purpose. Whenever I asked, and whatever I saw, it seemed people were looking and reaching beyond their current work. Perhaps they have a vision, maybe they are just ready for a vision. And of course, some funding wouldnt hurt. And some more training.
Its hard to describe exactly what 'capacitance' is. In electronics, a capacitor is a device that stores charge, and can deliver it when the need arises. To continue the metaphor, capacitors 'slow down' the rate of change of an electronic device, but also extend, even out, and stabilize its function. I guess I view capacitance in a health worker as 'being powerful'...the feeling that comes when you realize that finally your experience, your training, all the factors are actually giving you the ability to encounter a situation, make a rapid analysis, act, and later reflect on the action in order to improve your response in the next instance. The 'self help' that one of the administrators we met spoke of. The 'can do' that is famously ascribed to North Americans. 'Se Puedes' is the same thing, I guess.
Anyway, it was very inspiring and, of course, daunting. The educational system here is heavily teacher centered...and reinforced by the tradition of religious rote teaching that all major religions seem to adopt. I remember talking to secondary level educators in Ladakh and hearing their disappointment at the ability of their students, often schooled by monks, to spout back memorized text, and their inability to reason...their lack of 'capacitance'. We are repeatedly told the same thing here.
But back her on Bole, looking at the St Pauls curriculum, it seems very possible...even perhaps done already. Why not just do what we can to add our knowledge of assessment and professional development to the 'modified traditional' curriculum they have developed?
Well, its off to St Pauls to continue that very question with some direct observation...auditing one of their first year medical school classes.
No time to talk of my gift of peanut butter sandwiches to the kids living along the wall...tomorrow for that.
salama
alan
Yesterday I headed out in the SUV with Direr, the driver and an empty back seat; poof, no team, they have flown away. So with the improved clarity a shotgun seat brings, I immediately started correcting his driving…no; kidding!! Hes a great driver, and believe me, my life hinges on it. Its nowhere like India, but it is intense, and one of the rules seems to be the same; IF YOU ARE AHEAD, YOU ARE AHEAD. This simplifies events in unregulated situations, but in roundabouts/traffic circles it makes it a bit hair raising. However, as with all situations, Ethiopians handle it with a kind of gentle aplomb. Not a long of language lavished on the situation. And speaking of that…
Am I getting too old for a new language? Writing this, back at the apartment, I try to count…’And’ (one)..and I am stuck. What happened to ‘hulet’, that should be right there doing its dance beside ‘and’ , and for that matter to ‘sost, arat, and amIst’? Only yesterday, I was prattling away with wordy expressions like ‘sost michina’ and ‘and dinknesh so’ (excuse my non phonetics, any real Amharic speakers) and now I can’t get past ‘and’. Well, I seem to be ok with ‘dehna aderk’ and sometimes with ‘dehna ider’ at the beginning and end of the day, and ‘salama’ for pretty much everything in between. But for the rest, I feel like Hazel, the character in ‘Cannery Row’ who simply liked to listen to the flow of speech, and structured his social interactions purely to keep the flow coming.
If there is an enraged version, a road rage version, a NY Taxidriver version of this language, I sure haven’t heard it yet. The drivers or pedestrians or bystanders who you might expect to be getting into it in Chicago seem devoted to helpful solutions.
I had gotten up to Oluma’s office about 9:15, as we had arranged. The beautiful askari with the very Ethiopian gap between her two front teeth in the semi military uniform at the front desk smiled. The elevator was working. Oluma was at his desk. We started to scan through the St Paul’s Medical School curriculum, and then he remembered that he wanted me to go to a Health Center and Health Post. Actually, I had previously suggested it, to try to complete in some very un-thorough way my experience of the depth of the Ethiopian health system.
Oluma left to arrange the visit, leaving me with Birna, the economist attached to the project. We continued through the written curriculum, the first time I had really done this. Very well thought out, and although driven by lectures in discrete modules based mostly on organ systems, there is a communications and cultural curriculum and a skills curriculum that are structurally the equal of UCL/RFH in London, and close to the system used by UCSF. Plus, an explicit and very strong requirement for a reflective portfolio that includes specific mention of projects such as recording intractions with a family with a newborn, and a family that has experience disability. Additionally, the St Pauls admission process has a specific metric regarding gender and origin that should facilitate a ‘pipeline’ encouraging student school leavers (the end of HS, when most English speaking countries begin medical school) and post-bac students (those who have a undergraduate degree, which is when the USA begins medical school) to apply. Wow!!!
(There is a history for St Pauls, and I don’t really know enough to comment, but yes there was an expatriot in the mix. The current dean is Dr M, who attended the meetings we had last week…I described him as a perfect ‘Dean figure’..distinguished bearing and dress, and a gentle reflective accepting manner. )
We were working along through this, and I was beginning to fantasize of working with Birna to construct not only an excel based table to compare the two side by side with live links to the actual documents, but an excel model to cost out the two program. At that point, Oluma returned, a bit breathless from the trip up the stairs, and announced the car was ready, right now, to take me to the health posts…I was to be meeting L, one of the projects field workers, since she routinely visited them.
We barreled along out on Bole, and then turned onto the Ring Road, all this becoming somewhat familiar by now, and then again onto the road towards Adoma and beyond it, on the Red Sea, Djbouti. ( I can still only guess at the complexity of using Eritrean ports to ship Ethiopian goods, but Djbouti has been a port for Ethiopia for years.)
During the next 4 hours, we visited a Zonal/District hospital, a Health Center, and a Health Post, all in the vicinity of Bishops**…which I immediately transliterated to ‘Bishops Castle’, a town of perhaps comparable size in Shropshire that I happen to know because Tom and Molly have a home there. Talked to the administrator at the hospital and Health Center, and to one of the two health extension workers stationed at the Health Post. If I have time tonight, I will fix up a picture of Almaz, the 20 something that I interviewed via a translator (she was reticent about her English).
The one major thing all the visits had in common was enthusiasm. The hospital had a trained MBA as CEO, the Health Center was administered by a grizzled very reserved man who had started working there when it opened several decades ago and had recently become chief, and at the health post everyone seemed to do everything...except of course only the extension workers actually saw, visited or touched patients (thats why they are all women).
Another was sense of purpose. Whenever I asked, and whatever I saw, it seemed people were looking and reaching beyond their current work. Perhaps they have a vision, maybe they are just ready for a vision. And of course, some funding wouldnt hurt. And some more training.
Its hard to describe exactly what 'capacitance' is. In electronics, a capacitor is a device that stores charge, and can deliver it when the need arises. To continue the metaphor, capacitors 'slow down' the rate of change of an electronic device, but also extend, even out, and stabilize its function. I guess I view capacitance in a health worker as 'being powerful'...the feeling that comes when you realize that finally your experience, your training, all the factors are actually giving you the ability to encounter a situation, make a rapid analysis, act, and later reflect on the action in order to improve your response in the next instance. The 'self help' that one of the administrators we met spoke of. The 'can do' that is famously ascribed to North Americans. 'Se Puedes' is the same thing, I guess.
Anyway, it was very inspiring and, of course, daunting. The educational system here is heavily teacher centered...and reinforced by the tradition of religious rote teaching that all major religions seem to adopt. I remember talking to secondary level educators in Ladakh and hearing their disappointment at the ability of their students, often schooled by monks, to spout back memorized text, and their inability to reason...their lack of 'capacitance'. We are repeatedly told the same thing here.
But back her on Bole, looking at the St Pauls curriculum, it seems very possible...even perhaps done already. Why not just do what we can to add our knowledge of assessment and professional development to the 'modified traditional' curriculum they have developed?
Well, its off to St Pauls to continue that very question with some direct observation...auditing one of their first year medical school classes.
No time to talk of my gift of peanut butter sandwiches to the kids living along the wall...tomorrow for that.
salama
alan
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