Uncategorized – Page 2 – Retired White Coat

March 4, 2023

AI (Artificial Intelligence) meets 21st Century Dog Blog

I took my canine blog piece this week to ChatGPT and asked to convert it into Shakespearean sonnet and then write it in the New Yorker magazine style. All of four seconds passed when I received this output. It did not “red line” my original nor summon me to the English office after school hours. After a few minutes of sadness about the state of human creativity, I realized that we are doomed to the only job in the future: pushing a button like George Jetson working for Spacely Space Sprockets. Comments welcome.

Oh, how quaint and retro I may seem,

A lover of dogs from a bygone dream.

Gravy train and kibble, an old soup bone,

A shag rug for my faux dog throne.

Lassie, dear Lassie, my model of canine grace,

Saving grandpa from that mine shaft, what a race!

Rin Tin and Airbud, oh how they shone,

Snoopy, that smug dog, his charm never gone.

But now, in the 21st century, a grandpuppy has come,

A blend of beagle, pug, and a touch of Old Yeller’s gumption.

Watching stress-reducing videos on YouTube,

Meeting rodents in the forest, the views reaching 13 million, oh how true!

His bones, oh what a vast array,

No longer just bovine, they come in every flavor and day.

Rawhide, nylon, rubber, antler, oh what a delight,

Calcium phosphate, magnesium, salt-poor, salt-rich, what a sight!

Improved mouth health, jaw strength, tartar removal, all for the taking,

Supplemental vitamins and minerals, turning a dog into a Kennel Club sensation.

A Frisbee, an old treasure, the grandpup found,

But a new one from Amazon, a Kong, we quickly found.

Durability and universal love of dogs, oh what a claim,

Over the desiccated Portuguese Man o Wars, our pup was not the least bit tame.

Doggie health insurance, oh how grand,

Medicare coverage at 65/7, that’s a plan!

But what of fame and fortune, oh what can a pup do,

Hollywood is not the only path, I never knew.

Dog entrepreneurs, with their grooming and accessories galore,

Supporting animal shelters and having patents and trademarks to adore.

Manny The Frenchie, with a non-profit and a net worth of a million,

Walter Geoffrey, with his clothing line and sass, and a rap album in the making, how thrilling!

Loki The Wolfdog, co-founder of a travel app and a movie deal with Netflix,

Tuna, the Instagram celebrity, with an overbite that always smiles, and a book deal with Penguin Random House to fix.

Opportunities are endless, for the new century pup,

With improved nutrition, emotional adjustment, and love, they can really strut.

If only our grandpup would watch that instructional video on Frisbee catching,

The next Super Bowl halftime show, he’ll be ready, dispatching.

The New Yorker Style

As a proud retro dog lover, I was content with the basics: gravy train, kibble, an old soup bone, and a shag rug for a faux dog bed. My 20th century pup had it made. Lassie was the epitome of canine responsibility (Timmy: “Lassie, grandpa fell into the abandoned mine shaft again, go get help) and Rin Tin Tin and Airbud oozed star power. And let’s not forget Snoopy, with his smug confidence radiating from the daily comics.

But my recent encounter with a 21st-century pup shattered my nostalgic bubble. Baby-sitting my grandpuppy, a 9-month-old Orlando Rescue pup, I watched in amazement as he relaxed while watching a stress-reducing YouTube video of a Labrador retriever strolling through a verdant forest meeting a variety of rodents. This channel had 13 million views, although it wasn’t clear if they were the human or canine type.

And then there was the bone aisle at Petco – a cornucopia of choices that made choosing a variant of Pinot Noirs from multiple continental terroirs seem easy. Rawhide, nylon, rubber, antler versus bovine, calcium phosphate, magnesium, salt poor and rich and anti-oxidants. Bacon and cheese flavors could be added for those picky “chewers.” The packaging touted improved mouth health, jaw strengthening, tartar removal, improved oral microbiome, fresh breath, and supplemental vitamins and minerals that could turn your dog into an American Kennel Club icon.

Our grandpup discovered an old Frisbee in the closet which he immediately bonded with. But thanks to the mass of dog owners and capitalist ingenuity, I found Kong – a natural rubberized Frisbee that had nearly 27 thousand 4 1/2/5 star reviews touting its durability and universal love of dogs for this flying disc. I ordered it on Amazon and it arrived seemingly a few hours later. Our pup was bouncing after it on the sand and over the desiccated, beached Portuguese Man o’ Wars on the South Florida shores. And with top-notch “doggie” health insurance, he had no worries about jellyfish envenomation. I couldn’t help but wonder – at what age would he be converted to Medicare coverage? 65 years? 7? The thought amused me.

But wait, there’s more. Who knew that dogs have become entrepreneurs and started their own businesses? Grooming, training, accessories, food, and treats are just a few of the products and services offered. And some dogs even have patents or trademarks for their inventions or innovations. Manny The Frenchie (@manny_the_frenchie) not only runs a non-profit organization that supports animal shelters but also has a net worth of $1 million. Walter Geoffrey (@waltergeoffreythefrenchie) sells his own line of clothing and accessories that feature his signature sass and has a rap album coming out soon. And Loki The Wolfdog (@loki) co-founded a travel app called Loki The Wolfdog that lets you explore the world with your furry friend and has a movie deal with Netflix. Dog influencers populate the internet and often have more subscribers than humans. Tuna (@tunameltsmyheart), an Instagram celebrity, has a distinctive overbite that makes him look like he’s always smiling and also has a book deal with Penguin Random House.

So the opportunities are endless for the modern-day pooch. With improved nutrition, better emotional adjustment, and plenty of love, our grandpup can be the best dog he can be. If only I can get him to watch the YouTube instructional video on Frisbee.

February 28, 2023

21st Century Dog

I’m an old school, retro dog lover. Gravy train and kibble, old soup bone, shag rug for a faux dog bed, a rubber ball for chew time and fetching and a 20th century dog had it made. Lassie defined my idea of canine responsibility (Timmy: “Lassie, grandpa fell into the abandoned mine shaft again, go get help)! TV and movies displayed the star power of Rin Tin Tin and Airbud and the smug confidence of Snoopy radiated from the daily comics.

My 21st century introduction to the modern dog occurred recently as I baby-sat my grand puppy, a 9 month Orlando Rescue pup. Part beagle, part pug and a soupçon of Old Yeller, he arrived with a prance in his step and some apprehension in his new surroundings. The latter promptly ebbed as he sat watching a stress reducing YouTube video of a Labrador retriever ambling through a verdant forest meeting a various assortment of rodents. This channel had 13 million views, although it was not clear if they were the human or canine type.

He turned his attention to his stash of bones. I had naively assumed a bovine bone was his only arsenal but the mass of dog owners and capitalist ingenuity had transformed this market into a cornucopia of choices. Looking for a bone down the Petco aisle was like looking for a variant of Pinot Noirs from multiple continental terroirs. The choices were endless: Rawhide, nylon, rubber, antler versus bovine, calcium phosphate, magnesium, salt poor and rich and anti-oxidants. Bacon and cheese flavors could be added for those picky “chewers.” The packaging touted improved mouth health, jaw strengthening, tartar removal, improved oral microbiome, fresh breath, and supplemental vitamins and minerals that could turn your dog into an American Kennel Club icon.

Our grand pup discovered an old Frisbee in the closet which he immediately bonded. The plastic was going to be no match for his gnawing. I searched Amazon for a suitable dog Frisbee and found Kong, a natural rubberized Frisbee that had nearly 27 thousand 4 1/2 out of 5 star reviews touting its durability and universal love of dogs for this flying disc. Seemingly a few hours passed when the Amazon delivery truck delivered the new dog disc. It was a hit with our pup: he was bounding after it on the sand and over the desiccated, beached Portuguese Man o’ Wars on the South Florida shores. He had no worries about jellyfish-like envenomation, as our son had secured top notch “doggie” health insurance (at what age would he be converted to Medicare coverage? 65yrs/7, I mused).

Was Hollywood discovery his only path to canine fame and fortune? Again my naïveté of 21st century dog occupations was exposed. Entrepreneurial dogs have started their own businesses or helped their owners launch successful ventures. They offered products or services that catered to other dogs or dog lovers, such as grooming, training, accessories, food and treats. Some of them had patents or trademarks for their inventions or innovations. Examples of dog entrepreneurs include Manny The Frenchie (@manny_the_frenchie), who runs a non-profit organization that supports animal shelters and also has a net worth of $1 million; Walter Geoffrey (@waltergeoffreythefrenchie), who sells his own line of clothing and accessories that feature his signature sass and also has a rap album coming out soon; and Loki The Wolfdog (@loki), who co-founded a travel app called Loki The Wolfdog that lets you explore the world with your furry friend and also has a movie deal with Netflix. Dog influencers populate the Internet and often have more subscribers than humans. Tuna (@tunameltsmyheart), an Instagram celebrity, has a distinctive overbite that makes him look like he’s always smiling and also has a book deal with Penguin Random House.

Opportunities are indeed endless for the new century pooch. Our grand pup with improved nutrition, better emotional adjustment and love, can be the best dog he can be. If I can only get him to watch the YouTube instructional video on Frisbee catching, I know he’ll be ready to perform in next year’s Super Bowl halftime.

December 30, 2022

Holidays, Families and Lionel Trains

As the holiday season approaches, my thoughts turn to memories of childhood adventures with Lionel trains. As a young boy growing up in proximity to Penn and Grand Central Stations I was fascinated by trains and the intricate and detailed world of these miniature marvels slaked my interest. My uncle, an avid collector and enthusiast who worked for the New York Subway system, had inherited a treasure trove of Lionel memorabilia. One of my favorite memories was a vintage Lionel locomotive from 1940, a rare and valuable piece that he had always coveted. The locomotive was intricately detailed and had the ability to blow smoke when using special pellets in the smokestack, adding an extra layer of realism to our adventures.

As a faux conductor and engineer, the enterprise did not alway run smoothly. As my brother was fixing a track, I couldn’t resist the temptation to engage the transformer and send the trains chugging around the tracks. However, in my excitement, I didn’t realize that my brother’s hand was still on the tracks and he was shocked by the sudden jolt of electricity. “Ow! What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, as he jumped back in pain. My penance was removal from any electrical equipment and I was delegated to the mundane task of snapping together the plastic diner and signs that lined the train route.

A nod to NASA was a rocket launching car, a special edition released in the wake of the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik. As a child, I was worried about falling behind the Soviets in the race to space, and this little train offered a glimpse into a future filled with endless possibilities

I remember grinning at a later addition to our Lionel train set – a cattle car filled with plastic cows vibrating on platform, mimicking the movement of live cattle being transported across the country. “This is going to be the best train adventure yet!” I had mused, as I placed the cows carefully in the car.

As we sounded the train whistle and the locomotive chugged around the tracks, our terrier mix dog, Domino, started barking at the cattle car and shivering with excitement. Whether it was setting up intricate tracks and scenarios, or simply watching the trains chug along, there was something timeless and special about the world of Lionel trains. And as we spent the afternoon lost in the world of these tiny locomotives, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the memories and adventures that these beloved trains had given us.

It was moments like these that brought our whole family together, united by a shared love for these miniature marvels.

November 4, 2022

Learning From the Dead: Life Lessons of the Cemetery

A field trip to the Green-wood Cemetery, nestled between bodegas and diners in Brooklyn NY, seemed timely as my own expiration date looms closer as the aging process inexplicably marches on despite my total commitment to sunscreen and healthy eating. Just days from Halloween, the compulsion to explore an iconic burial ground beckoned and detoured me from my previously decided upon destination having been the Brooklyn Museum and Botanical Gardens. My wife and partner appeared dubious. We boarded the Q train for Brooklyn at 72nd street. We disembarked at the Green-Wood Cemetery transit station. Our journey started somewhat inauspiciously upon emerging from the SW exit. I saw signs for the transfer train lines: The D, The N and The R (DNR). Was this a deliberate attempt at macabre humor by the NY Transit Authority? My wife, a fellow physician, recognized the DNR or DO NOT RESUSCITATE acronym in full display as we entered the cemetery from the 36th St. entrance and she chuckled to herself.

Green-Wood unrolled in front of us as we entered the gates and passed the guardhouse on our left. Bucolic best describes the 478 acre land that was dotted with multiple bodies of water, fountains, trees, rolling lawns, massive gravestones and individual family mausoleums constructed with stone, glass and marble. Breathtaking! I briefly stopped at an information kiosk and learned that this South Brooklyn cemetery had been established in 1838 as a burial site for the burgeoning city in which it lies.. As an amateur student of history, I was drawn to the celebrity names of the past promised in the self-guiding map provided. For these departed individuals, the splendor of the mausoleums and monuments of their burial sites broadcast their influence and importance in their past lives.

DeWitt Clinton, 6th governor of New York and father of the Erie Canal, is buried on a green covered hill with a life-sized statue of himself standing on an oversized marble sarcophagus. He gazes over all of Brooklyn with his left hand raised as if shielding himself from the sun to better his view. Commanding!

Boss William Tweed, head of the 19th century corrupt political machine known as Tammany Hall, was prominently interred on Battle Hill, a revered site at Green-wood cemetery because it was the site of George Washington’s battle with the British at the inception of the Revolutionary War. A world class rogue and huckster, Tweed siphoned millions of dollars from construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park and the Courthouse in Downtown New York.

Among the century old London Plane trees and Dogwoods lies Samuel Morse beneath a Greco-Roman inspired monument. The inventor of the telegraph, classical painter and Morse Code originator had a near perfect record until he advocated for slavery during the Civil War.

While the glamor of the granite palaces marking the famous and infamous in death never failed to impress, I realized that the essence of humanity was to be found in the more modest gravesites. Thousands of small granite tombstones marked those who had served in the Civil War and the World Wars. Rows and rows of tombstones lined the grassy knolls as if the stones were marching in a regimented formation.

Fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War, William and Clifton Prentiss were reunited after sustaining mortal wounds in the same battle and interred together in perpetuity at Green-Wood.

Louis Abel, an electrical engineer serving in the 112th Infantry was stationed behind enemy lines in France during World War I. He writes his brother a letter 13 days before his death:

My dear Brother Eugene: 

As the war goes on and as I come out of each engagement still alive, I think often of those at home and wonder if I will ever see them again. You are all in my thoughts continually when I have time to think of other things besides the continual shellfire and fighting. My nerves have been sorely tried and many officers and men have lost out completely due to nervous strain making them useless. I sincerely hope all is well with you and yours. Love to all and may God who watches over us all bring us together again.

Lovingly your brother, Louis

Charlotte, a 17 year old girl on the verge of becoming a married woman, was accidentally killed in a carriage accident in 1844. She is interred next to her fiance who took his life in complete and utter grief over her unexpected death. Do-Hum-Me, an 18 year old Sac and Fox Nation Indian woman, was brought to the East in 1843 from her native lands in Iowa by her father to negotiate treaties with the federal government. She was hired by P.T. Barnum to perform Indian war dances in his New York theater. Without resistance to Western disease, Do-Hum-Me fell ill and died of an infectious disease. P.T. Barnum was so distraught he paid for her burial and tombstone. Two women, ill-fated for early deaths and thus virtually unknown during their lives, have become well-known and are frequently visited gravesites at Green-wood.

The sky darkens and a late October rain begins to fall. My wife and I open our umbrellas and prepare to depart the cemetery. We are headed back to the subway to return to Manhattan. We cannot help but to reflect on the beauty of the cemetery and the lessons it has taught us: it is the quiet lives of so many who are unsung in the world that reach out to us in the most unexpected places that remind us the importance and beauty of every life.

September 19, 2022

Tree Surgeon

The second hand swept past twelve midnight on the operating room clock as the retractor dug into the palm of my hand and my biceps lactate level soared. “Hmm, you’re choosing Internal medicine?”, intoned Dr. G, as he directed the surgical resident to place catgut sutures into a human gut that was defiled by a stab wound in the heat of a gang altercation in East Los Angeles in 1977. I pulled on the retractor as Dr. G. sermoned his soliloquy on the superiority of surgical practice. “Who is going to save the patient with appendicitis or peritonitis from certain death? The surgeon!”, he emphatically answered.

Morning arrived quickly and surgical rounds began as a retinue of visiting professors, fellows, residents, interns, social workers, case workers, physical and occupational therapists and finally third year medical students filed in behind Dr. G. In my sleep deprived mind, I saw his surgical cap as a tri-cornered hat, his pocketed stethoscope as a sword and his entry through the door of the large L.A. County Hospital ward as passing under a faux Arc de Triomphe after his conquests at Austerlitz. Moments later, he transmogrified into a fusion Perry Mason and Clarence Darrow, as he interrogated a profusely sweating surgical resident who had the misfortune of a post cholecystectomy wound infection.

Many decades later, playing “where are they now?,” I did the perspicacious detective work of finding out what accolades Dr. G. had received in the 21st century. In other words, I had googled his name. Up came the answer: He had retired to a South Pacific Island to manage a greenhouse and take care of plants and trees on the island. He had become a plant and tree doctor! The head of Los Angeles County Trauma Response who had mended miles of injured intestines, cauterized thousands of bleeding blood vessels, and drained an ocean of abscesses had become a tree and plant caretaker. I was gobsmacked to say the least.

Trees were meant to be cut down to make way for McDonalds’ parking lots, inspire insipid poems that 4th graders needed to memorize, and knock down errant golf balls. (Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of D- Day and former U. S. President, urged Augusta National Golf Club to cut down a tree on the 17th hole that consistently stymied his tee shot).

As the years peeled away and I grew more gray, I learned respect for green. Peripatetic journeys with my botany-wise spouse and selected artificial intelligence plant apps opened up the world of beauty and ecological necessities of our flora. The mountain ash leaves feeding an army of tadpoles, our Red Osier Dogwood stabilizing our topsoil and preventing erosion, sunflowers blooming in summer and providing sustenance for bees, the Oregon Crabapple providing shelter and food for the Bluebird and Cardinal, and the joyful human stroll under the elevated tunnel of American Elms lining the Literary Walk at Central Park, are fine examples of the edification and beauty I had discovered in my new-found hobby of tree identification and exploration.

Dr. G had seen decades of turmoil and tragedy mending the human body in East LA. He found tranquility and peace tending the South Pacific flora thousands of miles from the mainland. His time spent caring for trees, I would like to think, was like a healing tonic for a soul undoubtedly troubled and fractured from the many toils and challenges of practicing medicine and surgery for decades. In a sense, he was finding his humanity and giving back to the planet what we have taken for granted for so long: the life-giving beauty of the Kingdom Plantae. I have to admit, I completely understood.

August 7, 2022

Travel Mishaps

Fifty-two years ago my dorm roommate and I hitchhiked from the University of Buffalo to SUNY Albany. Three successive rides found us in the commercial district of Syracuse. As the day passed, the temperature dropped and the cars whizzed by our outstretched hypothermic thumbs. Dejected, we walked to the Bus Station and contemplated our next step. With no time and no money for a round-trip to Albany and back to Buffalo, we bought a one way ticket back to our starting point of Buffalo. We sat down next to a middle aged man in a wrinkled suit and waited for our Greyhound bus. “Is there a decent restaurant around here?” we asked our seatmate. “There is a great Italian restaurant around the corner,” he stated confidently. Pooling our meager resources we sought out the trattoria and ordered a plate of pasta. The spaghetti was served as stiff as straw. Our resident restaurant critic at the bus station had clearly steered us wrong.

Twenty years later, my hitchhiking days behind me, I drove with a friend to San Francisco. With the passenger seat littered with AAA and Rand McNally maps, my navigator advised staying on I-80 as the Embarcadero came into view. “On no!”, I muttered, as I realized I was going the wrong way on the LONG Oakland Bay Bridge toward Oakland and was doomed to pay a double toll.

Undeterred by my past travel mistakes, my family embarked on a European vacation at the turn of the century. My spouse, a capable cartographer and blessed with a directional sense like a passenger pigeon, assured me that we were not going to get lost. We rented a Renault in Paris, buckled up our two boys, and set out to discover the continent. A few miles out I failed to translate the “sens unique” (one-way sign, not covered in High School French). Sweating profusely, I made an instantaneous U turn and avoided a vacation ending collision. We arrived in Aachen, Germany and entered a museum devoted to Charlemagne. The exhibit explanations were in German with no translation. Ich bin ein Berliner and aufedasein were the extent of our German vocabulary. We detoured to the snack bar to complete the museum experience. That evening we arrived in Strasbourg with a thimble full of gas in the tank. The next morning, I pulled into the gas station, opened the gas tank door and noticed French instruction on the inside door (words, again not covered in High School French). I filled the tank and set off to Switzerland. A few miles onto the highway, the car started to lurch and emit a high pitched moan as I was shifting my manual transmission into 2nd gear. I got off the highway into rush hour Strasbourg traffic when the car led out a cringe worthy groan and stalled. Behind our Renault were at least 50 angry French commuters yelling French words (that again were not covered in High School French class). Later that day, a mechanic, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lip, informed me of my error of filling up a diesel engine with regular gas. He muttered some unintelligible French sentences but my rudimentary French picked up some words (stupide: stupid, guignol: clown).

After the ordeal, we decided to recharge with French cuisine. The bill came and I calculated the tip by mentally converting dollars into Francs. I mistakenly used the wrong currency in the calculation and was off by a factor of ten. The waiter was elated by his generous tip and my wallet was a good deal lighter. I had finished the day with a trifecta of vacation gaffes.

I am now millions of neurons lighter in the 21st century compared with my youthful self but have gained “vacation bonus IQ points” with the advent of smartphone technology. Currency converters keep tabs on the foreign exchange markets by the nanosecond. Apple and Google Maps keep me on track and down the right one way streets. I was cruising in the Mojave Desert on I-15 last week and the app warned of an accident (truck on fire) halting all traffic for 2 hours. As the temperatures soared in the desert, I placed a call to the California Highway Patrol. The California Highway Patrol representative asked, “ What lane are you in?” “The far left lane,” I answered. “Stay in that lane. We just opened up that lane 60 seconds ago and you should be good.” Seconds later, the cars started to inch forward and we made our way past the accident. It was highway nirvana.

Language barriers have fallen. Despite English ubiquity, Google Translate helped convert German menus, German museum placards and German signs into understandable jargon. Impractical high school French classes devoid of real life vocabulary are no longer dangerously impactful. Choosing a restaurant no longer requires a recommendation from a fellow bus passenger. Today, Yelp, Google and TripAdvisor have us covered wherever we go in the world.

In May of this year, we took a trip through Eastern Europe for almost a month without a hitch. I relied heavily on my technology loaded Iphone, T-Mobile cell towers and an occasional friendly recommendation from an equally tech savvy European citizen. But travels would not be travels without mishaps that many times end up being memorable happy accidents. The proof: many years later these are the stories my family and I speak of and write about.

I am still recovering from my Diesel Mishap but encouraged to know that fossil fuels are in the rear view mirror and electric vehicles in the future will have only one plug to choose from.

July 7, 2022

Message to Comic-Con Museum: Add Superman ASAP

It has been 40 years that I have perambulated Balboa Park and admired its variety of museums. The Hall of Champions was one of my favorites given my obsession with all things sports. It was bittersweet looking at the exhibits knowing that San Diego had an acute shortage of victors in professional sports. The AFL Chargers of Lance Alworth fame from the early 1960’s, way before the NFL merger, were an exception. The Padres, losers of two World Series, Dennis Conner, who lost America’s Cup Yachting race after 132 years of successful American defense and the loss of two NBA franchises were reminders of San Diego’s “snake bitten” past.

In 2017 the Hall ceased operation and a new museum was to take its place. Inspired by the summer Comic Con Convention, its mission was to educate and entertain the public with comic and popular art forms. It vision, summarized on the website:

Thrive as a world-class attraction and gateway to popular art, culture, and life-long learning for San Diego residents and visiting tourists.
Serve as a pop culture focal point, enhancing the ways San Diego celebrates its unique place in the popular culture landscape.
Enhance the economic strength of the community.
Become a sustainable model for equitable and environmentally-sound community service through our practices and offerings.

The hard opening of the museum on July 1st featured the Marvel Universe, Spiderman and all his glories and Ernest Hemingway in comics. I strolled up to the entrance and asked a spokesperson about the details of the Superman exhibit. “Oh we don’t have a Superman exhibit yet,” she said. “But we are in negotiations with DC Comics.” “How could this be?“, I mused as the 12 year old inside of me tried to cope with this disappointment. My formative years were shaped by Action and Superman Comics. I learned about inflation (10 cents/copy in 1960, 12 cents a few years later), toxicology (green, gold and red kryptonite), journalism (The Daily Planet and its staff) and infatuation (I had a crush on Linda Lee Danvers, Supergirl’s alias).

I had pressing 21st century questions for the Superman franchise: How had climate change affected the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic? Did the Daily Planet survive and gain a digital footprint? Superman is faster than a locomotive but is he faster than a Saturn Rocket?

I respect all of the Gen Xers, Millennials and pre-baby boomers who revere Marvel and will flock to San Diego in the coming days to attend Comic Con and its new museum. But I implore all baby boomers and supporters to take action. The “Man of Steel” who stands for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is needed now more than ever.

June 25, 2022

Peering into the Past and Future: Riding Down the Rhine and Danube

It was time to travel despite a war in Eastern Europe, runaway inflation, political turmoil and exploding Omicron SARS-CoV2 variants. With a KN-95 mask, COVID antigen tests and $50 worth of digital guidebooks in hand, we boarded a river boat to glide upstream down the Rhine, Mein and Danube, from Amsterdam to Budapest to find history, fine spirits and the origins of ancestor’s past.

We were going to the edge of civilization, as the Romans had defined it circa 2000 years ago. The Rhine and Danube were the North and Eastern boundaries of the empire, warding off the barbarians, the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths and Franks. The Franks had plundered Eastern and Western Europe, united under Charlemagne and eventually (?with the help of intermarriage and French wine) settled down in France so their ancestors could appreciate fine architecture, food and Jerry Lewis.

The tragedies of history were retold by guides, museums and historical plaques as the craft dodged buoys and passed feudal castles. In Amsterdam, Cologne, Regensburg, Vienna, Rothenburg, Bratislava and Budapest were military monuments, holocaust memorials, mass graves, ramparts and moats, museum artifacts, artillery and ballistic impacts on stone walls that testified to perpetual war and oppression from the Middle Ages onward. The grievances are engraved in our schoolbooks: Romans v. Barbarians, Christians v. Arabs (Crusades 1-4), Protestants v. Catholics (30 Years War and others), Ottoman Empire v. “Civilized” Europe, Habsburgs v. National Uprisings in the mid nineteenth Century, Prussian Wars of the late 19th century. The 20th century brought us World Wars I and II ending the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires and Hitler and the Third Reich at the expense of over 60 million lives.

As we headed South and East along the Rivers, I encountered glimpses of my Jewish heritage. The Jewish Diaspora from antiquity forced migration from Western to Eastern Europe along the Rhine and Danube. Jews were multilingual merchants, bridging the Arab and European divide and helping to create the trade routes from Asia, Africa and Europe. They were artisans in the pre-industrial world and creators of the financial world that allowed the development of city-states. Judaism financed the release of Richard the Lion Hearted of England’s release from captivity and paid for the defense of Vienna against Ottoman Invasion in the 17th century. Yet, each town’s history was marked by the same recurring theme: Jewish expulsion and persecution.

Tragedy often begets opportunity. Science, medicine and art blossomed along these European river tributaries. Booerhaave, the Dutch physician, organized hospital divisions, defined pathology and described his eponymous esophageal rupture syndrome. Dicke, an Amsterdam physician, recognized abdominal pain and diarrhea in Dutch children reintroduced to bread following privations of World War II and described celiac disease. Down the Rhine at Erlangen, Germany, Demling and Classen devised a modified electrified wire passed through an endoscope and allowed non surgical removal of bile duct stones in a jaundiced nurse in 1973, introducing therapeutic biliary endoscopy to the world. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, discoverer of X rays, taught on the Mein River at Wurzburg in the late 19th century. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis treatise and practice was a part of 1890’s Vienna. Laszlo Biro from Budapest, invented the ballpoint pen and freed the world from fountain pen leakage.

Music flourished along the river, providing the world with the classics from Mahler, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt.

History was infused in everything we saw and consumed. I ate herring in Amsterdam as the Dutch West India Company sailors did before traveling to Nieuw Amsterdam and quaffed Riesling from The Rhine Valley from Middle Age monastery vineyards. A McDonalds and statues of Ronald Reagan and George Bush in Budapest were symbols of who won the Cold War.

The realities of the past portend the fragility of peace for the future. The murmurs from these ancient rivers give us pause to respect and cherish our freedoms.

May 20, 2022

The House that Ruth (Beer) Built

I was perched in the upper deck of venerable Yankee Stadium as the dulcet tones of “O Canada” serenaded the patrons. As the Yankees took the field for a day game against the Toronto Bluejays, my thoughts turned toward food and beverage. A hot dog and a beer, I mused, was the classic choice. I felt the kinship of brews from the past, imagining my Uncles’ Bill and Herman and Cousin Jack quaffing Ballentine, Rheingold and Knickerbocker Beer under the facade as the IRT Subway rumbled by and DiMaggio rounded the bases.

I was well aware of the importance of beer in life and in baseball. It established prehistoric man’s enthusiasm for agriculture, paid the wages of those who built the pyramids and motivated thousands of undergraduates to learn beer pong. In the mid 19th century, immigrants from Europe migrated across the Atlantic, to the land of opportunity. One in particular, the Bavarian Franz Ruppert, established a brewery in New York to slake the thirst of 19th century New Yorkers. Franz’s grandson, Jacob Ruppert, Jr. inherited the brewery from his father and purchased the struggling New York Highlanders in 1915. With his “beer wealth” he rebranded the club the Yankees, bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox, established the farm team system, put numbers on the player’s uniforms and moved the Yankees out of the Polo Grounds and into a new Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx.

Ninety-nine years after the opening of the original Yankee Stadium and 27 championships later, the “beer magnate’s” acumen has proven successful.

The memories of Three Ring Ballentine and Knickerbocker Beer have faded but the smell of outfield turf, and the aroma of malt and hops in the upper deck and bleachers in the Bronx in springtime lives on. And as the 20th century philosopher and late Yankee announcer Mel Allen opined, “How about that!”

April 12, 2022

Searching for One’s Youth In Retirement

Retirement is the quest for one’s lost youth. My ace in the hole might be a worm hole, which is a celestial conduit to shrink time and space and therefore a chance to time travel back to my healthier optimistic younger self. This vision was shattered when Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking pronounced time travel incompatible with current physics theories. My 401K, ear marked for purchasing a used DeLorean and a Flux Capacitor for time travel, was now to be directed to other pursuits.

Plan B was a more prosaic pathway for youthful pursuits: relocate to South Florida known as the “sixth borough” of New York City. I found myself approaching the 8th decade of life in the company of nonagenarians who referred to me as “sonny” and “junior.” The airwaves were filled with promises of youthful regeneration: dental implants to restore vitality to your oral cavity, walkers that will bestow Olympic style feats to your daily regimen and skin fillers that will erase your wrinkles.

Working venues for conversation shifted from corporate boardrooms and hospital clinic corridors to the retirement social gathering places of Florida: card rooms, MahJong parlors, something called a “PickleBall court” and golf course tee boxes. Comments from my contemporaries at the the diners and delis now include: “remember when the subway cost 10 cents,” “do you recall John Glenn circling the earth from a black and white TV in school?”

One day, on a typical golf tee in South Florida adjacent to an alligator filled water hazard, a taciturn man removed his tee peg from the ground and began the traditional exchange of identities to the rest of the foursome. “A retired principal and educator from the Northeast” I heard. The conversation continued as specifics of his working life seemed to get closer to the geography of my youth. The Northeast became New York City and then Queens and then Bayside. I furtively glanced at his golf bag and a name tag came into view. This was Mr. Thompson, my 7th grade science teacher! For an instant, I entered my private wormhole back to 1966. It was a school day and I was out of class without a hall monitor pass. Did I break the Erlenmeyer flask, and if so, would Mr. Thompson charge me with interest (compounding at 3% with a 56 year late fee)? Will I ever dunk a basketball and why don’t I get invited to middle school parties? The shooting pain in my back brought me back to the 21st century and present day reality.

Mr. Thompson had an advanced degree in chemistry, devoting his life to teaching generations of middle school science students. As we walked through the palm trees and sawgrass, he provided the details of maintaining educational excellence as principal and backstories of teachers living in the ’60’s that were ensconced in my archaic memory.

I struck my next shot and watched it splash in the H20 hazard, descending into the briny NaCl estuary and settling into the amino acid coated bottom. Mr. Thompson approved of my nomenclature which softened the grief of the lost ball.

As the wormhole to the past closed up, I reflected on the good fortune of having dedicated and respected public school educators bestowing knowledge to a clueless adolescent. However, the real joy of discovering your former science teacher on the golf course 56 yrs later was watching his facial expression spread with pride as I told him of his influence in guiding and preparing me for a career in medicine. He thanked me for the closure and said the broken Erlenmeyer flask was forgiven. It was a perfect day on the golf course and I felt a definite youthful spring in my step.

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