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James Hamilton, M. D.

Henry David Thoreau had his Walden's Pond and I have mine.It is just across the street and hidden by trees.

Jim

P.S Janie et al - Janet figured out how to get back to adding pictures

Jim

Joseph D. McCarthy

It's so relaxing to be on "Vacation" or whatever you call being away from home.  That's what I thought until I received text and Emails from the indivual who waters our plants and checks to be sure the house is allright.

Dan sent me pictures of three notices posted on our front door from the City's Water Department notifying us of trouble with our water usage.  Seems we have gone through over 20,000 gallons of water since we've been gone and they want it corrected stat.

Called the company we've used for years. They determined that two of our toilets malfunctioned and allowed a constant flushing.  Quickly turned off the water suppling the toilets until we arrive back home and can select new toilet replacements.  Could have been worse, as we worried about all day, but no damage beyond a lot of wasted water.

Have a happy day.

David Mitchell

Janie,

If you were referring to my "Youth in Govt." group photo, I don't know the girls or the guy in the middle but the rest are L to R:

 Mike Radcliffe, Mayor Sensenbrenner, Bill Reed, Larry Wood, and Dan Cody

(not sure if that's what you were asking)

David Mitchell

Scary Question: 

Am I getting older?

Or is it ust that my Doctors are gettng younger?

Michael McLeod

In all seriousness you're right, Mark, and I don't want to come off like a supercilious prick, correcting other people's grammar.  My apologies to Dave and to everybpdy else and trust me I'd be embarrassed for sure if I 'fessed up to all the mistakes I made over the years, most of which got caught by various sharp-eyed newspaper copy desks in Ohio and then in Florida, who saved me from embarrassment. 

So as my mother would have said, I've got no room to talk. 

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- If you are going to be a stickler about other posts' grammar, you might want to correct your own habit of not capitalizing the first words of your sentences. Just saying... (from one English nerd to another).

David Mitchell

I think I may have posted this before so bear with me.

I was still living in Denver and we were back in Columbus on a visit. My parents neighborhood (Overbrook, Yaronia, and Wynding Drive) was throwing a sort of block party. As I stood in line for some food a woman in a pink pants suit came face to face with me, looked me in the face and said, "Hi Dave. Remember me?"

I drew a blank - then it hit me with a shock. She said "I'm Jane (forget last name).

It was sister Frederick ! ! !

She had left the convent and married the Sheiser twins dad. 

Michael McLeod

excellent advice from a recent column in the ny times. wish I'd asked for help more than I did as I was coming up. I especially like the wisdom of the last sentence:

Being a successful self-starter doesn’t mean pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s raising your hand and asking a teacher to explain, once again, a concept you still don’t understand. It’s calling up a former boss for advice. It’s announcing to your team that you’re stuck on an important problem and need their collective brain to solve it. It’s not just stoically making the best of a bad situation — it’s proactively making your situation more supportive. Don’t assume you’re being a burden when you reach out asking for help. Research shows we consistently underestimate how happy it makes others to lend a hand.

Michael McLeod

worth watching. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhz96MPVqKE

Michael McLeod

Your cool word for the day is "polysemic." definition below

I can't imagine ever using it but I just ran across it and, like the nerd that I am, I decided to keep it in a jar by the door. 

carry on. as you were.

as for me I'm going to try to think of examples of some cool polysemic words. 

but not until a.c. (after coffee).

Michael Boulware

Watterson's football team is amazing. They have the longest winning streak in the state, a Schultheis as a place kicker, and one of their captains is a world champion wrestler. That is not a mistake. Michael Boyle not only won the state and national wrestling championship; he beat everyone in the world (well, in his weight class). 

Michael McLeod

thanks for the whs football update mike. makes me wish I still lived up there.

David Mitchell

Yeah, but do they have a pair of unbeatable defensive ends - like the legendary Mike and Don?

Or a running back like (Von) Ryan's express?

David Mitchell

Mike M.

Your "worth listening" video (above) has a suspicious look and feel about it. It looks exactly like dozens of other videos about famous performers, stopping in mid-show to hear the voice of a crowd mmber. They all have the same setting, the same coloration and lighting, and the same male voice-over. I think Ive seen one for Willy Nelson, John Denver, and several others. Same storyline, same concept, etc.

But yours has one more suspicious clue. It's supposed to be on Johnny Carson's show, but in that first section, the grey haired man at the desk on the right is definately NOT Johnny Carson. When the video switches scenes and then comes back to that scene later, it does appear to be Johnny.

I've now watched 4 or 5 of these and they all have the same look and a similar story.

Michael McLeod

dave:

I'm going to guess that the uniformity in presentation that you detected can be explained by assuming that this presentation,and others like it, are prepackaged by p.r. firms who put them out on behalf of their clients. Maybe there's one public relations firm in particular that's been cranking them out with that same format.

anyway, way to go, eagle eye!

John Jackson

Of all the surpassingly stupid things Trump has done, going out of his way to stick his finger in the eye of our oldest and best friends/neighbors/allies is (with the possible exception of the Iran war) the stupidest.  I’m totally on the side of the Canadians in this fight:

David Mitchell

John,

Hard to decide which is greater - the scale of his selfish financial corruption, or the depth of his utter stupidity. 

Do we curse and shake our fist - bury our faces in our hands and cry - or grab another drink and try to laugh?

I pray history will not forget the political cowardice of this group of enablers, wishing to dignify themselves under the nickname of "Congress".

Joseph Gentilini

David, exactly how I feel. He is bankrupting this country, disobeys laws, thinks no one is angry at him but only republicans (not true), doesn't keep his promises except when he wants to seek revenge on those who will not 'adore' him, etc.!

Joseph Gentilini

 John J - I agree with you. Calling it Lake America because he doesn't like Canada is another example of his narcisisitc personality disorder.  The world laughs at him and he doesn't see it.  The world will call it Lake Ontario just as they do with the Gult of Mexico.  He is a total joke, but a dangerous one.

Michael McLeod

On a more serious vein: I'm wondering what the post-trump atmosphere of the country will be - if there is a rennaissance of sorts, intellectually and otherwise. I just have a sense that the collective personality of the country will see things with freshly awakened vision and it will  be reflected in the arts and humanities and overall creativity, something like the roaring twenties only an outburst that will be more grownup, more contemplative. 

History works in cycles. I bet what we've been through the past few years goes down in the books as a dark age of sorts, and we may have the pleasure of living long enough to enjoy a rennaissance.

John Jackson

This just in from The Borowitz Report:

Man With Severe Dementia Starts Calling Common Objects Different Names

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—An eighty-year-old man with severe dementia has started calling common objects different names, a leading expert in cognitive decline said on Thursday.

The expert, Dr. Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Medical School, noted that the confused man had mistaken the names of major bodies of water and a prominent performing arts center in his city of residence.

The fact that the man has reportedly passed cognitive tests during his annual physicals means that “he is not getting the care he needs,” Logsdon said.

Calling the man’s dementia “advanced,” the expert said, “He must immediately be removed from any position where he can cause harm.”

Michael McLeod

listen to "I shall be released" by Bob Dylan.

Don't bother with the version of him singing it.

Find a cover of that song by another singer.

You'll thank me. I can't get it out of my head. Don't want to.

Michael McLeod

Good lord.

Over the past few years I've been in a relationship with a lovely woman who teaches grade school children in a public school down here in central Florida.

She has to keep track of 70 odd students somehow. Seventy!!!

I know this because my daughter mentions that number when she continously advises me not to call her as often as I'd like to.

Good advice.

David Mitchell

I was having lunch today with a former assitant pastor and close friend. He has a son who just took his Bar exam in Tennesee. He visited with his son last week in Nashville. My friend offered me some good advice.

"Dave, don't get caught visiting Nashville in the same week that Dolly Parton dies."

David Mitchell

Last week's news of flooding in the Grand Canyon brought back some memories from the summer of '61.

I was fortunate to attend a camp ("The Prairie Trek") based in rural New Mexico, from which we traveled by truck throughout the "Four Corners Country" - for about 8 weeks. We visited spectacular Bryce and Zion Canyons and spent some time on the Navaho and Hopi reservations. 

One of the highlights of the summer was the Grand Canyon. Part of my group (the 13 year-olds) hiked throught the Grand Canyon - down into the canyon from the south rim - and up the north side. If I recall correctly, It took a total of 29 hours, including sleeping in our sleeping bags on the ground near the bottom of the Canyon. The hike down was harder physically than the hike up - a different stress on the feet and legs. (note - we are talking steep trails - but not like mountain climbing)

We also stopped at the famous "Phantom Ranch" - a rustic but luxury guest ranch and near the bottom of the canyon - where they alowed us to take a swim in their pool.

** I see in their website that they suffered plumbing damage from the flooding and have suspended operations temporarily.

I can't imagine what would have happened to us if.........

The next morning as we got up to begin our "climb" out, one of the guys had a rattle snake under his sleeping bag, that had crawled underneath him - I assume for his body heat. We had learned by then how to handle the rattle snake and relocate it.

Later we passed the biggest Rattler any of us had ever seen. We had to warn each guy behind us as we passed.

The camp had an older group of 16 and 17 year-olds. My older cousin Jim (Watterson '63) was in that group and they voted against the hike through the canyon because it sounded too hard. But we 12 and 13 year-olds were too young to know better.

------------

My tent mate that summer was a Jewish kid from Boston named Johnny Mann. We became great friends - both dads were doctors and we both loved sports. We followed the home run race between Mantle and Maris, and evey time we stopped in a town (for water, gas, or mail pickups) Johnny and I would race to the newspaper stand to get a sports page and see who was leading in home runs. Johhny later won the award for "Treker of the Year" - a silver sandcast Navajo belt buckle. 

Years later, I'm watching Ted Koppel's late news and he is interviewing some famous doctor who headed the world headquarters (from Switzerland, I think) on AIDS research. He had a familiar look about him. He was bald but with a feaky looking dark hair on his sides, a big mustache, and glasses. He looked like some geeky scientist.

After watching the interview for several minutes it hit me. It was "Doctor Johnathan Mann".

I decided that night to try and reach him (after 20 or 30 years), but only found his sister in the Camp records. Before I could reach him, I was sitting with my son, watching the news one afternoon, when they announced the crash of a Swissair flight off of Nova Scotia. Among the deceased passengers was "the famous Dr. Johnathan Mann" and his wife.  

I was dumbstruck!

--------------

My nephew later attended the camp - won the silver Navajo belt buckle for "Treker of the Year", and went back the next year as a counselor, in the same group as my youngest daughter attending the camp. They both became good friends with fellow "Trecker" David Weld, son of Massachusets Gov. William Weld. Later, when my hephew was married at Out Lady of Victory. My daughter and I sat with Gov. Weld's wife and children, who were among my nephew's invited wedding guests.

I almost forgot, my son also attened the camp - and loved it. He (at 16) wrote us a letter saying "I'm never comming back".

Note: Sorry for such a long-winded (and boring) post, but the flooding in Grand Canyon opened a flood of memories. As much as my summer in Salzburg, Austria (after Junior year) and my 2 tours in Vienam, my summer on the 'Prairie Trek' was one of the greatest experience of my life.

--------------

* * * You can look up the "Prairy Trek" on the website "Cottonwood Gulch" The are now celebrating their 100th year and have about a dozen differenct groups each summer, including young ones who spend their time mostlry in the rustic base camp.

- - - - - You should send a gandchild or great grandchild

You might also find another site of interest - the "Phantom Ranch" in the bottom of the Grand Canyon