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Michael McLeod

and now this, in the yukky but fascinating category:

I left out the byline but I believe it was written by winnie the poo

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — There’s a new war raging in health care, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and thousands of lives in the balance. The battle, pitting drug companies against doctors and patient advocates, is being fought over the unlikeliest of substances: human excrement.

The clash is over the future of fecal microbiota transplants, or F.M.T., a revolutionary treatment that has proved remarkably effective in treating Clostridioides difficile, a debilitating bacterial infection that strikes 500,000 Americans a year and kills 30,000.

The therapy transfers fecal matter from healthy donors into the bowels of ailing patients, restoring the beneficial works of the community of gut microbes that have been decimated by antibiotics. Scientists see potential for using these organisms to treat diseasesfrom diabetes to cancer.

Michael McLeod

hey dave my bad I think I included the name of the photog who took Brooks' picture when I pasted the article

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mike,

As gross as it may sound, fecal transplants have been around for about a decade and is the preferred treatment for recurrent C.diff infections when specific antibiotics directed against C. diff have failed. It can be given orally (in a capsule), by nasogastric tube or rectally. I belive most patients prefer family members to be their donor.

Medicine is finding other uses for this therapy now as the individual microbiome pattern is being studied in connection to a variety of diseases.

Anyone want to volunteer for any trials??

Jim

David Mitchell

Sounds like a bunch of s - - - to me. I already gave at the office.

Michael McLeod

I figured you'd weigh in on this, Jim. It really is fascinating. 

And Dave: As usual, you're full of it. 

Timothy Lavelle

Sometimes these years, I find myself making the dumbest mistakes. When Mike said that, like an English major, he likes an extended metaphor...my immediate thought was "what does a soldier from the UK have to do with an extended metaphor". Seriously. 

I'll keep this word dump short. I don't think we have a chance at seeing the contempt subside anytime soon. The Dems are firing every verbal cannon, whether from the center or further to the left. Doesn't have to be correct or even smart...just keep firing! Trump spews out lies and ill will and falls into bro-mances with strong-arm guys who rule their countries in a way Donnie wishes he could do here. It is the rare Republican who has the nads to stand up to Boss Trump. And any news organization that is not based on conservative ideas will keep burying us with the latest crap about Donnie because he is the train wreck that just keeps on giving. 

In hiring a businessman to be President, some felt that a hard hitting wealthy businessman would surely sort these corrupt politicians out. But of course, no one checked to see that the book "Trumpian Business Ethics" actually contained zero pages.  

Jim, it's no surprise that you followers of Trump would rather speak to policy than personalities. As the voice and the face of our nation to the world, he makes us all Ugly Americans to people who don't know better. My question is how do you remove the personality and the penchant for fabrication? It feels like the level of contempt we all live with would subside incredibly with just getting the man to shut the hell up.  

David Mitchell

Seriousy Mike,

You keep paying me these sweet compliments and I may be forced to take back every single dirty, rotten, foul thing I've ever said about you.

Well, at least some of it anyway.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Michael McLeod

Or you could just quote Pogo.

We have met the enemy.....

David Mitchell

ahem Mike,

I think that was Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie.

"We have met the enemy, and they are ours."

I know it's hard for you English Majors to keep their historical facts straight.

But I (like the goverment) am here to help you bro. 

David Mitchell

I have a boring question.

In the glorious four years that we all spent roaming those hallowed halls on East Cooke Road, there was a somewhat important figure who's role in life I am still rather vague about. Though I saw him everywhere and often, I never once had a class from, or held a conversation with Father Durbin.

Who the heck was he, and what was his job? Anyone have a story to enlighten me about him?

Michael McLeod

Dave: while your nose was in the history book mine was in the funny papers.

No question to me which source of information better suits our current predicament.

David Mitchell

Mike,

No, not my History book. Remember, I hated to read. (but I actually do love history)

Truth be known, I only knew that one because we summered on Lake Erie every year and I went over to Put-In-Bay Island (South Bass Island) and toured Perry's Monument several times. We actually could see the Monument from our dock (near Gem Beach) so it was sort of ever present in my mind. 

My "history" of the funnies doesn't go much deeper than Snuffy Smith and Prince Valient. I was almost 40 years old before my own kids introduced me to "The Far Side"

Now will someone please clue me in as to who Father Durbin was? 

Michael McLeod

Durbin was in charge of disciplining pain in the ass kids like myself.

That's all I recall.

Nobody else wants to talk to you, Dave.

You are lucky you have me.

Michael McLeod

In keeping with a recent conversational theme I have been developing:

This was a favorite in my family. It's by a beloved poet of another generation. An uncle of mine had recorded his reading of it on some weird plastic record, as I recall, and we played it now and then. My mother loved it. 

This poet speaks fondly of a time -- and place -- gone by.

David Mitchell

Oh Mike, 

That same poem (or an abreviated version) hung in the kitchen of our cottage up at Lake Erie. Each of our old cottages (built between 1903 and about 1930) actually had out houses behind each one. Ours was built onto the side of the old garage and is still there. A few remained in part-time use when I was young - for occasions when large groups gathered (too large for everybody to wait for the one inside bathroom) or the "new " plumbing backed up. 

 I am moved by this fond memory, but alas, I think I shall leave it behind.

And I too enjoy these intimate conversations between the two of us. Kinda nice to know that everybody else is asleep. Golly, we could say just about anything we wanted to. 

And again, does anybody know the offical rank, title, or serial number of Fr. Durbin?

Class?  Anyone?  Class?

Michael McLeod

HALF A MILE OR MORE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM????

man those folks had it rough.

David Mitchell

".....miles to go before I sleep."

Mark Schweickart

Mike – This reminds me of a talk I had with a St. Michael's classmate as we were walking home from school one day. I can't remember his name. i don't think he went on to Watterson. We were probabaly in about the third grade, and he was telling me that a salewoman came to the door one day and was showing his mother samples of a new, softer and more fragrant toilet paper that had just come on the market. He then said his father came into the room, overheard the discussion, and barked, "Lady, all we need is three corncobs: two red ones and a yellow one." The salswoman looked up, rather startled, as he finished with, "You use the red one, then you use the yellow one to see if you need the other red one."  My friend laughed at how funny this was, and I laughed along, but in reality I had no idea what he was talking about. It took me awhile to figure out, but I have since been plagued with this memory taking up much needed real estate in my brain.

Dave – I have know idea who Fr. Durbin was, or why he was there. Come on, Fred, we know you know this one.

Lawrence Foster

An Eagle View photo and a Fr. Durbin story that involves Steve Hodges.

Senior year I had Father Durbin for religion.  One day we were having a test.  Part of it was a matching type question.  Father had listed maybe a dozen or so sins in one column.  And in the other column were the 7 Deadly Sins:  pride, envy, lust, gluttony, anger, greed, and sloth.     We had to match one of the 7 Deadly Sins to each of the described offenses in the other column.

At one point during the test Steve gets up and goes to the front of the class with his test and starts whispering and gesturing to Father Durbin about something on the test.  Father Durbin listens, responds back, and they both chuckle and have these little teasing smiles on their faces that would say something like "gotcha!" 

After all the tests had been gathered up Father tells us that Steve pointed out something to him about the matching questions.  It has been long taught that pride is the cause of all sins and indeed pride leads to all the others on the list of the 7 Deadly Sins.  Steve was pointing out that if he were to write "pride" next to each of the descriptions then it would have to be correct.  Whether or not Steve did that I don't know.  But Father Durbin and all of us did get a chuckle out of it.   

Below is a photo and article from an Eagle View, sophomore year, April 1964, showing Father Durbin and 3 other priests who were part of a pipe smoking "club."   Father Durbin is identified as the priest on the far left.  But in my memory the priest on the far right, identified as Father Arcurri, looks more like the Father Durbin I remember.  Can anyone clarify that?

This photo makes me think of an informal but famous literary group at the University of Oxford, England from the 1930s and 1940s that included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.  I have enjoyed many of writings of both those authors.  I think it was in sophomore year that we read Lewis's The Screwtape Letters but I don't remember if it was in English class or religion class.  

Joseph Gentilini

Larry, about the pipe-smoking priests. Iyou are correct.  The first is Durbin, then Grimes, then Van Horn, and then accurri (spelling?).  As I remember, I had Van Horn as a sophmore and Accuri as a Junior.  I had Durbin as a freshman but I don't know I had him for religion.  I had Durbin as a world history freshman class.  Joe

David Mitchell

Thanks Larry. I kind of half expected we'd hear from you on this one.

But still wondering if he had a "rank" -  a "position" - like was he assitsant principle or something? No, I guess that would have been Sister Frederick. But he had some job description above just "teacher" - or at least I thought he did.

And Joe,

you beat me to the punch. I had a long time family relationship with Father Grimes from his first go around at OLP as a very young assistant pasto under Father Foley. Then again when we moved back to Columbus and my kids were in OLP and Watterson. He was then the pastor at OLP and was really a different person from those earlier days. 

I had Father Arcurri for Religion too, and thought him somewhat of an oddball. 

And I had Father VanHorn for religion also - maybe that same class with you, Joe. I got into a heated argument with him once and really lost my temper. You may remember. We stood face to face pointing our fingers at each other, yelling at te top of our voices. Somebody behind me - (Tom McKeon, Keith Groff, Kevin Ryan ?) - I forget who - was pulling at the back of my belt trying to get me to sit down. The bell rang and Father and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and walked down the hall, arm in arm, laughing.  

But never once did I have so much as an exchange of greetings with Father Durbin. 

Mark Schweickart

Speaking of Father Arcurri, this is the way I remembered him in the somewhat fictionlized memoir I wrote and which I know you have all been exposed to from previous posts. In this case, I changed his name to Father Arturo, you know, to protect the idiotic. This part was not fiction. It went like this:

Equally creepy was Father Arturo, who felt it necessary to pass along the following admonitions to the boys in his Religion class to help them avoid temptation and to thwart unnecessary arousal. First he told them that when mowing the lawn with a gas-powered lawnmower, it was wise to keep the mower at some arm’s length from your body. You did not want all that vibration jiggling away at your waist line or who knows what might happen. Obviously Father Arturo knew, but “Good grief,” Mark thought, “You have got to be kidding.” The good Father then followed with a second admonishment about the dangers of riding on a city bus. This one was even harder for Mark to understand because he could not recall that there was any unusual amount of vibration in bus seats, but apparently Father Arturo must have had a wood-sprouting accident on a bus trip, and attributing it to the bus vibration probably was less problematic for him than questioning the purity of whatever it was that he may have been thinking about at the time. Lastly he suggested that when in a bathing suit at a beach or in a pool, one should exercise caution when leaving the water to make sure that no unseemly tumescence would be displayed to others, and if it took a few minutes to deflate, it was better to stay in the water for a while than to risk embarrassment to oneself or others. This admonition elicited another “Good grief.”

And speaking of weird priests, What was the story with the one (not sure of his name, was it Fr. O'Reilly?) who lived there at the school. He had a small apartment, which had its entrance door on the landing of the rear stairwell (Ithink) leading to the second floor. I remember we called him "Smelly Bob" because of the way his cassock had these big circular white sweat lines emanating from each arm pit. Yikes! there's an unpleasant memory.

David Mitchell

Larry,

Just went back and saw the comments you wrote under your photo. 

I never was a Tolkien reader (nor Chesterton) but I do love C.S. Lewis. I was just at a luncheon today where they cited a wonderful quote of his.

( "Fastidous people who try to make the Christian hope of heaven ridiculous by saying they "don't want to spend eternity playing harps". The answer is that if such poeple cannot understand books written by adults, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery, harps, crowns, gold and so on, is of course, merely a symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. People who take religious symbols literally might as well think that when Christ's told us to "be like doves" He meant we shoud learn to lay eggs.")

I still have my dad's paperback copy of "Screwtape Letters", and it's one of the rare editions that includes his wonderful forward about when he first wrote it as a column in the London newspapers - and the hilarious nasty letters to the editors by some ultra-conservative Christian "literalists", who completely missed his sarcasm - and therefore the entire point of his story. He did have a keen sense of pursuasion, and a wonderful sense of humor.

David Mitchell

Ohhhhhh Mark!

That was Arcurri alright! I was trying t be kind with my remarks but he was off the charts weird.

And Father O'Reilly  WOW!

 I think I went after him big time about a year ago on this Forum. I made mention of how Tess Warrick and I sat right under his nose in Junior History class and we never stopped challenging him. And I really think he despised the two of us for it.

And the stains weren't the half of if. He never had his Roman collar buttoned and he looked sort of half baked most of the time. And the smell of alcohol on his breath from the front row was at times overpowering. I also made the comment before that I don't think there was ever a priest who had less business "teaching" teenagers. He was one very unhappy man. I heard later he became the pastor at St. Joseph's in Circleville (or Chillicothe?). For those parishioners I have only this to say - "It's sad," 

P.s. I wish some of the ladies would jump in here. I heard some doozies about the girls religion classes from a few OLP classmates.