I hadn’t thought about Kinky Friedman – the Kinkster – for a long time.
We’d had a CD stuck into the player in our Wrangler for years. Today, it seemed to spring to life. I guess all those jostlings on the back roads knocked it back into place. And who were we trying to listen to way back then? The Kinkster, his CD “Old Testaments and New Revelations” containing a lot of his old good stuff. “We reserve the right to refuse service to you” got us laughing and wanting more. That had to wait till later. We had WCBN (the student’s network) Down Home Show to listen to. That wonderful compendium of country music from across the spectrum and years is a can’t miss at our house. Afterwards, we were hungry for some more country music, so I proposed a Kinky symposium. We finished off the CD we’d had in the Jeep, enjoying some of his best*. We have 2 other of his CDs “From one good American to another (’95)” and “Kinky Friedman’s bi-polar tour (’13)”. For years we’ve had “Pearls in the snow (’98)”, a tribute album with other artists with better voices covering the Kinkster’s best. I bought that album ‘cause Don Imus recommended it. Kinkster was a regular on Imus; how I miss that old bastard.
Kinkster hasn’t confined his prodigious talents to music. Yes, I’ve been watching him since college, when his “Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed” helped sum up my views on women’s liberation. Kathy doesn’t like the tune. My Wikipedia says it was Commander Cody who got him his big break in ’73. No wonder I like him. He’s written a number of mystery novels, which all sound like fun though I’ve never read any. In 2006, he ran for governor of Texas. He received 12.6% of the vote, placing fourth in the six-person race. During the campaign, he offered a doll which would spout Kinky’s campaign phrases. I bought it and have it somewhere. I recall one of the slogans: “I support gay marriage. They should have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us”. He’s since made a couple of strong bids for Texas agricultural commissioner.
The Kinkster hasn’t toured for a while. He’ll turn 77 in November. He released a new album, “Resurrection”, 2 Octobers ago. I’m hoping he’s just laying low till the Mr. Corona thing gets sorted out (think he’ll have something to say about that?). In the meantime he’s got a treasure trove of recordings to tap into that harken back to a time when you could say what you think and think what you say. Those were the days.
Old home week* got even more fun, if that could be possible, when I read Kathy Forsythe’s e-mail Saturday morning asking “Do you have a blog?”. Kathy, editor of the South County News, is writing a story for the August issue about Vicksburg and Vicksburg-connected folks who had self-published their books. Kathy, VHS class of ’76 and an English teacher at the high school, assumed the post upon the passing of Sue Moore May before last. Sue had cut her chops as a newshound doing child labor for her dad, Meredith Clark, publisher of the now defunct weekly Vicksburg Commercial ( 1). In our ‘burg, news of doings at the high school were always a big deal, so I found myself in there a time or two. I had ‘em send the paper to me at my dorm at Michigan, much to the amusement of my more sophisticated dorm mates. Sue married Tim Moore of Simpson Lee Paper, with whom she begat Chris, who has come back to the ‘burg to transform the abandoned Simpson Lee paper mill into an entertainment and meeting venue, a garagantuan project (front page and pp24-33) (2). One of the highlights of reunion weekend was a tour of the mill arranged for the classes of ’70 and ’71. We were fortunate enough to have Tim in our tour group. Mid tour, he sat and told us about the complex process of paper making. He was joined by Chris, who didn’t say much, but clearly adored his dad.
Sue divorced Tim but remained a force in the village. She was amongst a group of folks convened by Village president Bill Adams to bring forth a successor to the Commercial-Express, the last iteration of the Commercial, then owned by the Kalamazoo Gazette, who finally closed things down in 2012. The group asked Sue to edit what emerged as South County News (3) in June 2013. The monthly is every bit as charming and informative as the Commercial was, and features color!
I’d made it into SCN twice, once when Sue wrote about me (4), and a few months later when I wrote about her (5). The paper is free, but I send ‘em a donation every so often and make it onto the back page on the list of supporters.
When I published my first book in May (6), I e-mailed Kathy Forsythe in case she wanted to tell her readers that that doctor from April 2020 had finished his project. When I hadn’t heard from her in June, I e-mailed her again, hoping that that piece would be in the paper when members of the VHS class of ‘70 descended on the ‘burg for their 50th plus one reunion*. She wrote that that issue was full, but that she’d be writing a piece for the next month about locals who’d self published; all she wanted from me was a pic of me holding my book. You got it Kathy! I’m giving her 2 choices.
My new dear friend, Judy, a Vicksburg classmate, was a medical transcriptionist. She understood the lingo but took her understanding of COVID from the MSM. I’ve been working on setting her straight. When she came back from a recent exchange stating that was her understanding was that Plaquenil (which she had to look up as hydroxychloroquine) didn’t really work, I had to step in. Here’s what I wrote.
So if you have my first book https://www.amazon.com/Musing-through-Pandemic-Year-Corona/dp/B098GV14KY/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=%22robert+ike%22&qid=1627004171&sr=8-3, you can answer a lot of your questions about Plaquenil. There’s even a post – “1919” – describing a passage in a North Dakota medical journal describing the positive effects of quinine (precursor to Plaquenil) and salicylate (aspirin, an NSAID), in treating patients with Spanish flu. The old is new again. Plaquenil does not help patients already sick in the hospital get better. Plaquenil is what you take, maybe with Zithromax, when you first come down with COVID. The U was their stubborn assed selves, taking a very “anti” attitude when it looked like using it in hospitalized patients didn’t help. Once you hit that ER door with respiratory problems, it’s too late, Jack. The time for it was in the outpatient setting, which is where the corrupt useless AMA totally blew it. The atmosphere got so bad that docs prescribing it at all were identified as pariahs. This crap about taking it from the mouths of lupus and rheumatoid patients who truly needed it is total BS as the stuff is easy to make and the several manufacturers could just cook up their vats and make more, which is what they did. PDJT took it and still got COVID, but he beat it in less than a week, helped along by some steroids and remsevidir. That was standard treatment at the time, not something they ginned up just because he was Prez. Some of the increased hospital numbers at the time rose because, instead of turning folks away till they got sicker, they brought them in for this treatment. Later, the hospital numbers fell as they figured how to give this stuff as an outpatient. I don’t know if you watch the Johns Hopkins site https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline, but I follow ’em like sports scores. In some states lately, there’s been a very slight uptick from an extremely low baseline in new cases. Not in Michigan, but deaths remain flat. As expected (to anyone who knows virology), the virus has mutated into an effete shadow of its former self, as happens with all viral epidemics! Delta schmelta. As would have happened with this one much earlier had they not tried to “flatten the curve”. The once mighty and fearsome spike protein of the virus has gone flaccid with many mutations, which also means that immune systems primed to recognize it by those mRNA vaccines no longer do so and thus offer no protection against new strains. So further vaccination is a waste of time. Thus the outcry for reinstitution of restrictions and more vaccinations. Give me a break. Let the fuckin’ virus run its course and go from a Wuhan bioweapon into another common cold agent where it started. That’s where evolution is taking it. As we so often say, not often enough, let nature take its course. “Follow the science”, for chrissake.
I today brought home from Staples some paper copies of the second edition of my first little book The Accident so I could have some for the Kindle-less. They look great but lack one functionality of a Kindle, the ability to access any link. There are only four links in the book, two to songs that emphasize a point, and one to a book about the history of the village of Vicksburg, one to my Amazon author page, and an article in the local paper about my beginning research for this book. I’ll be sticking the URL of this post inside the front cover of each book so readers can access those links by coming to this page. After the obligatory reproduction of the book cover, I list those links.
You really have no right to write about how great a party was unless you’ve got a good hangover from it. I had that thought as I dragged myself out of bed this morning. With that biologic memory of last night’s blowout fading as we crept into Saturday afternoon, I figured I better get cracking before the rest of ‘em do the same.
Planning started way back in February. That’s when Kathy announced that, after 32 years attached to the U (22 with a paycheck), she’d be cutting the cord and hanging ‘em up at the end of winter term. All those years of service deserved a proper retirement party, and I wasn’t going to rely on the School of Kinesiology to throw one, especially as their hatches were then still battened down by Mr. Corona. Right from the get go, I figured that party for a twofer, having it on her birthday in mid July, when surely we’d be over our viral syndrome. It would be at our very favorite place in town: the outdoor court at Casa Dominick’s, complete with the statue of the little boy peeing into the fountain. Plenty of time to collect names of folks from all walks who studied with her, played with her, worked for her, or were taught by her once upon a time. I’d sprinkle in some of my friends who knew us both, always liking her better, of course. Knowing I’d need some help, I convened a “committee” composed of her boss the associate dean Tom, fellow doctoral student Marvy, and fellow student, bridesmaid, and the woman who hired her to teach for a year that turned into 10, Pat Van. We’d assembled a healthy half hundred or so by St. Paddy’s day, so the first announcements went out. The list was fluid, and I kept adding to it right up to the week of the party. I wasn’t for sure about the date yet, so these first ones were just a warm up. Having learned how some people hate batch e-mails https://whttps://theviewfromharbal.com/2021/04/02/batch/, I took care to send each invite individually. That made it even more fun, as with each transmission, I’d get to remember the person to whom I was sending it, some I hadn’t thought about for decades. Only one person didn’t have an e-mail, so I sent a snail-mail letter to 5 time Olympic diving coach Dick, with whom Kathy had coached in the early 80s when she convinced Stu that he could use an assistant coach for the women’s swimming team, which eventually won 5 Big 10 championships under Stu. Why let an All-American backstroker go to waste? Her colleagues and students were far flung, from California to Boston to Florida and most stops in between. Of her two bosses at NASA, one had been to space many times but was planted on terra firma now, mostly, while the other was building a better way to get there. The was a smattering of past and present star Wolverines. There were plenty of professors, a few (medical) doctors, and even a one-time chancellor of the entire California State system. Fortunately, we both knew a few normal people we could invite. I began asking Richard, owner of Dominck’s, about access to his courtyard. He’d been closed since ol’ Gretch slammed the door on bars and restaurants April before last. Even though that courtyard would have been tailor made for outdoor dining, he was so worried about COVID that he never considered it. In March he asked me to call him back in April, when he told me to check in when he opened sometime in May. He didn’t. Kathy and I would take the kilometer walk from home to check status of ol’ Richard’s place, but it was always closed and quiet, with no signs saying when it might be otherwise. We satisfied our cravings for an outdoor beer going to the open air Garage Bar on Church, a couple blocks east. While sitting there on a late afternoon in early June, who would walk by but that skinny gray old hippie Antoine, Richard’s busboy and a good buddy of ours. We pumped Antoine for all he knew, which was plenty. They’d be opening sometime after the 4th. When I asked him about having something there July 16th – I’d thrown myself and my support staff a retirement party there 2 summers previously after I’d had so much fun at the one my Division had for me there – he pulled out his cell phone, punched it, handed it to me and lo and behold I’m talking to Richard. So the cone of silence had been broken, but I kept the talk low enough all Kathy learned is that we were going to have a party there on her birthday. I think she did hear me give the crowd estimate at about 40, but later said she figured I’d misspoke as there was no way we’d get 40 people to her birthday party. She remained pretty much in the dark, just where I wanted her, right up until party week when a couple hints trickled out from guests whom, apparently, I had not properly briefed. With a date, time, and location set, it was time to send out the specific announcement, which looked like this:
Come help her celebrate!
Yes our K.C. may not be retiring just yet – couple half-time terms for a proper victory lap and those bennies yet – but the party seemed like such a good idea when I proposed it last St. Patrick’s Day, I decided to throw it anyway. Hey, it’ll still be her birthday! Richard Devarti co-operated by lending us his courtyard at Dominick’s, even though we’ll be in the middle of art fair.
So now just the facts, ma’am:
Who: Kathryn Irene Clark M.S, Ph.D., M.S, our KC
What: A party! Celebrate her birthday, and her retirement from the U. Sure, it won’t happen for another year, but she’s officially stated her intention!
Where: Casa Dominick’s N 42 deg 18 min
812 Monroe Street W 83 deg 42 min
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 Alt 840 ft msl
sandwiched between the law quad to the north across Monroe, the B-school to the east right across Tappan, and right next door to Medical Marijuana Tournaments & Creative Rec LLC (walk-ins welcome)
free parking for U retirees and holders of at least a blue pass in the B-school parking structure nearby on Hill. Otherwise try the side streets south of Hill. Or park distantly and take a nice walk.
When: July 16, 2021
4 – 8 P.M. EDT
Why: because we love her!
Hope to see you there! If you’re really planning to come, please let me know at scopydoc52@yahoo.com so I can give Richard a head count. That way, he’ll have enough beer. And sangria.
Bob Ike (Mr. Clark)
Confirmations, and a few regrets, flowed in after that. I think I sent out that announcement at least 2 more times. Another apparent COVID casualty was the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, an annual debacle when hordes of out-of-towners descend onto our town to buy overpriced knickknacks from vendors lining our blocked off streets. All those people have to eat and drink, so local restauranteurs love the event. Good townies get the hell out of dodge. Even though the beautiful paper art picture that hangs above our fireplace came from art fair, we haven’t gone for years. I’ve learned to avoid the trap where I’d end up springing for a hunk of jewelry for her from art fair, into which the birthday I’d forgotten up to then conveniently falls. Without art fair to snarl traffic, eat parking, and crowd courtyards with tourists, our afternoon at Casa Dominick’s would be more comfortable and peaceful.
When ol’ Gretch announced that indoor dining restrictions would be lifted as of July 1st, we knew we had a green light. After a couple of walk bys well after the 4th found a still closed Casa, we began to get nervous. When Monday of party week found a similar façade, we were relieved to see a round pizza cardboard posted to the right of the door saying they’d open on July 13th, tomorrow! That capped a pretty good Monday that started with my excuse of needing a new computer charging cable to get me out of the house carrying the bongo board I’d give to Marvy to bring into the party. One of the guests would be #23, who before he racked up more yards than any Wolverine running back before him was a freshman in Kathy’s Motor Control class. She used the bongo board to demonstrate balance, and #23 was an ace at it. He remembered that class, and his performance, well and was pleased he’d get another chance to show it and was flattered when I wrote I’d be asking him to autograph it.
Art Fair weather is usually pretty predictable: beastly hot and humid, punctuated by a drenching thunderstorm or 2, usually brief. Thanks to Climate Change, this week was cool and the rain predicted was to come without ‘bolts but would last and last. As I made menu choices and other arrangements with Richard on Thursday, he assured us we’d be fine on the second floor covered deck (we were), even without the pissing boy, which he said he had named Oscar in honor of his postman. He did warn me that he had no mechanical conveyance to transport guests to the second floor. Thus, any so sufficiently impaired to preclude a stair climb, before or after the party, would need to be carried. Even though there would be some pretty creaky folks in our crowd, I figured they could all negotiate a flight of stairs, at least at the beginning. I sent out one last e-mail that evening, batch this time, but using “BCC”, passing on the detailed traffic and parking snarls the city had been so kind to delineate, announcing the sign in book (not for contact tracing!) and name tags that would await them and also giving them a peek at the menu choices I’d made.
As I carried Kathy’s cappuccino to her still in bed Friday morning as I sang Happy Birthday, we couldn’t help but notice it was pouring rain, just as Weather Underground had predicted. I set about tying up what were more loose ends than I’d anticipated. She didn’t know there was to a hard start to the party, but by 3 was getting antsy to go. 3’s the magic time as that’s when my retiree pass will get me into any University parking structure, including the big one at the B-school two blocks from Casa. I wasn’t finished yet, so I said we’d leave around 3:45 and we did. We hit the door right at 4, Richard sitting at a receipt and notebook covered table by the bar. He pointed us upstairs where a few pitchers of beverages and Pat Van and husband John awaited us. I poured a glass and set about setting up the welcome table. That morning, I’d found in our shelfful of blank journals, ledgers, and notebooks the perfect spiral to hold our guests’ signatures.
Not only has Kathy worn her share of share of Speedos en route to her All-America and after, Stu, the coach she worked under, left coaching to be marketing executive for Speedo. Fortunately, she’s never made me wear one.
There were two more things for the guests: the name tags, of course, and 3 piles of our business cards. We weren’t aiming to sell anything – although Docere can claim 8 books: her scientific writing text (1), her 2 children’s books (2,3), and my 5 Amazon/Kindles (4-8) along with 6 multimedia posts (9-14) – just give the guests a memento and a way to contact us.
This wasn’t one of those surprise parties where the place is packed with guests before the guest of honor arrives to be shocked by a boisterous “surprise!”. Yesterday afternoon, the surprises just trickled in, one after the other. Vic! Katerina! #23!! Austin (her 6’11” TA) watch your head! And after several more, all the way from Tejas taking a break from building space capsules, Puck!, an inveterate Domer wearing a green Lockheed Martin Orion shirt, but carrying a similar one in blue for Kathy, just her size. She’s wearing it today. The crowd really was from all walks, and we found all sorts of things to talk to each other about. #23 and I discussed 70s era medical practices vis-á-vis the Bo/Dr. Anderson affair before Joel my medical historian friend stepped in to carry the conversation who knows where. My aerospace accountant high school friend Rod, who now runs a home improvement business, found common ground with the men who designed (Gary) and rebuilt (Brian) our house in ’04-5. Katerina and I shared stories of our ill treatment by the U at the ends of our careers. My high school friend Jim, who like Rod and his wife Chris, came all the way across the state for this, could always talk to anybody, even me, and did. He found my outspoken Romanian colleague Elena fascinating and texted me this morning he wants to have her children. Matt might have something to say about that. Although the crowd was heavy with academics, they were from many different departments and schools. Much Kinesiology, of course, but also Physiology, History, Internal Medicine, Rheumatology, Nursing, and even another institution (Washtenaw Community College). All were so siloed, hearing what each other was up to was usually an eye opening experience. A special bunch had started, and sometimes spent, the bulk of their lives in the water. It made for a choice group picture. Left to right, there’s Vicki (Dick’s daughter, an Olympic caliber diver in the early 80s, her younger brother Bruce a silver medalist in ’84), Stu (4 year All-America (breaststroke) Michigan letterman in swimming and also water polo, and 5 time Big 10 champ as womens’ coach), Kathy (women’s ass’t coach ’81-3), and Dick, NCAA champion diver and winner of the national trampoline title as a U of M student, he coached the U of M Diving team ’58-’02 and USA divers in 5 Olympics (’64, ’80,’84, ’88, ’92).
There was no formal program. Undisciplined multiple simultaneous conversations were the rule and all the music this party needed. #23 never got to demonstrate his bongo board prowess, let alone sign it. Nurse Therese, who got to know Pat Van through John her husband, a fellow Spartoon who lived in the same dorm as Therese, just not at the same time, learned that Pat had some prepared remarks about Kathy, as I knew beforehand. Pat has done this sort of thing for decades, usually delivering her remarks about the retiring in rhyme. Pat was sorry to tell me she had so much to say about Kathy that prose was the best she could do this time. It would be a shame for the crowd not to hear it. Therese had to point this out to me a couple of times before I tapped the glass, not knowing if it would quiet this crowd. But it did, just like at any wedding. Pat said her piece, which was touching, moving, heartfelt, and thorough. I doubt that anybody in the crowd knew all that about Kathy. I even learned a few things. Here’s what Pat said:
“Kathy Clark, AKA KC, came to A2 in 1981. Little did she know of the various ways her student jobs would one day lead her to preparation work with NASA. As a volunteer swim coach, she worked with the one-day-to-be legendary team of Kimball, Isaac and Urbanchek. (PAUSE) She also baked fragels and bagels at the Famous Bagel Factory. The most interesting early work experience was as a U of M nighttime security guard. Armed with only a flashlight, she walked the corridors of empty buildings to reach various check points to confirm all was safe. Her collection of unique work experiences were likely helpful preparations for adventures such as riding NASA’s “Vomit Commit”, taking off and landing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, and, of course, her history as a collegiate All American swimmer which led to her ability to pass the swim test she would need to fly with a Navy pilot to have access to the ship.
KC had the “honor “of teaching a freshman requirement science class. Some of her students did not make the job easy. They might not have liked the class or were only remotely interested in the topics. I expect this experience helped her to achieve the finesse to speak to international scientists and politicians during her years at NASA.
(PAUSE)
I met KC in 1984. I was just starting as a non-traditional grad student and was trying to find a mentor for one of the classes I was assigned to teach. Back then many grad students were required to teach activity classes. One of my classes, Dance for Fitness, was a mystery to me. Someone suggested I meet with KC and directed me to Tim White’s where she was conducting research. As I walked into the lab and proclaimed who I was and that I wanted to locate KC, Dave Geenan nicked the carotid artery of a rat they were operating on – whereupon blood spurted everywhere. I immediately exited the lab with the lame comment that I’d catch up with KC later. Well, we eventually did meet. (PAUSE) And a friendship blossomed.
During the time KC was earning her PhD, she was introduced to her now husband, Dr, Robert Ike. They were married in October of 1986. I was a member of the wedding party and, although the weather was inclement, the event was spectacular! For some 30 plus years, KC and Bob have parked at my house during home football games. Now that’s friendship! Through the years, we’ve met many of their family members and KC and Bob watched our son grow up.
While working to complete the requirements for her PhD, KC created an experiment to send pregnant rats into space on one of the missions to the Space Station. NASA took notice of her abilities, although they nixed the idea of creating an image of a pregnant shuttle. She rose through the NASA ranks to Chief Scientist for Human Space Flight and Senior Scientist for the Space Station. Her knowledge of space and space travel made her an ideal companion for us to share a trip to the Smithsonian’s Spence Museum. While she and I were walking around the museum, KC was explaining the various exhibits to me and I suddenly noticed that she had attracted a following group of tourists who were eager to learn the various details she was sharing with me. Fun day.
During his reign as governor, John Engler appointed KC to the Michigan Tech Board of Trustees. Not being someone who wastes time, KC has also become an author, served on many educational societies and acted with UMs “Talk to Us.” She’s a pilot, and has returned to UM to teach some required courses, Scientific Writing is part of MVS curriculum. Along the way she earned an MS in lunar geology.
KC’s success has come full circle. She and I have even been occasionally known to consume an adult beverage in this very establishment. (PAUSE)
Happy Birthday KC. I look forward to your true retirement in 2022.”
More talking, drinking, and eating and eventually the tables were bare and the deck was empty except for Puck, Brian, Elena, and Matt. It was only 8, but dark. Puck, with my assistance, had secured an AirBnB somewhere in Tenure Town (Burns Park). We drove him there. His flight back to Dulles was too early to allow a breakfast meet up, sadly. Then somehow, our Patriot got us home, leaving but one tire rut under the pine tree.
Despite my admonition to guests “No presents! Your presence is gift enough” there was loot to be gathered from the table as we left. Many touching cards, the one from Rod containing perhaps the best gift of the night, a raffle ticket for a trip to space on Virgin Galactic https://www.omaze.com/. Several bottles of wine, of which we drained maybe 2 in the afterglow. Perhaps accounts for this morning’s brain activity. All in all, it was just like the Irish Rovers first sang a year before Kathy hit AA (but Tom Paxton wrote it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-KDSxqJ_0o
Next year, we’re going to do it all over again, when she “really” retires.
9. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. John Sinclair Freedom Rally performance. (from Ten for Two, premiered 4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Posted to YouTube by RW Ike 3/3/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ21BHiSlJ4
10. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Seeds and stems again blues (from Ten for Two, premiered 4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Published on YouTube by RW Ike 3/4/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb_Bz4SssxM
11. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Jailhouse Rock. (from Ten for Two, premiered 4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Posted to YouTube by RW Ike 3/4/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0rYQ97fJBU
12. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Everybody’s doing it (from Hollywood Boulevard, premiered 4/25/76. Produced by Jon Davison). Published YouTube by RW Ike 3/4/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI73MfmDYSM
13. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Hot Rod Lincoln. (from Ten for Two, premiered 4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Posted to YouTube by RW Ike 3/19/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8TeHA4UL_8
14. McCoy SS, Ike RW. Labial salivary gland biopsy by Dr. Sara McCoy (silent). Posted to YouTube by RW Ike 7/17/21. Available at: https://youtu.be/O7hxT6OLfH0
Kathy and I have decided to celebrate Bastille day by making some genuine French fries, even though we knew they were mainly a Belgian thing, or maybe not https://delishably.com/vegetable-dishes/Is-it-French-Fries-or-Belgian-Frites. We acquired the genuine McDonald’s recipe https://www.food.com/recipe/mc-donalds-classic’french-fries-copycat-433745, and had the necessary beef tallow on hand (secret ingredient) https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/1384. Prior to 1990, all McDonald’s fries were fried exclusively in beef tallow. If you’ve noticed a drop off in quality since then, there’s your explanation. But in the Harbal kitchen, we know no such boundaries! A couple days back, we bought a couple Russet potatoes, peeled them, and ran them through the mandoline, a French slicing contraption Kathy bought me a couple years ago which is tailor made for this duty. The potatoes had to be brined, then frozen, which prevented us from eating them on “National French Fry Day”, which our WRCJ DJ friend Dave Wagner had proclaimed Tuesday morning. But the waiting was worth it. All my remaining stock of tallow went into the pot, knowing it could be strained and reused up to ten times. Many more fries to come. Then, after my candy thermometer registered 3750 as the recipe specified, we danced in half of the 6 oz of potatoes we had frozen. We eagerly watched them turn brown, removed them to a colander, then did the same with the rest. They didn’t get to cool very long before we began snacking and oh my! These were McDonald’s fries on steroids! Brown, crisp, and absolutely exquisite! This is a dangerous thing we’ve discovered. It is easy to procure and prepare Russets for this fat bath, which we seem to have the capacity to replenish many times. How many more meals will we have when we ask ourselves “do you want fries with that?”?
fries awaiting consumption. The cookie tray was just someplace to rest ,and had nothing to do with their cooking.
Are you spooked by this yet another new strain of COVID? Don’t be. When I first wrote about 2019-nCoVBetaCoV/Wuhan/WIVo4/2019 (Mr. Corona’s full name) back on March 13, 2020, just as things were starting to heat up (1), I mentioned that the little sucker mutates like a mink. The error rate in reading coronavirus RNA is about 1/10,000 nucleotides. With an average 30K nucleotides per viral genome, that translates to 3 mutations per replication. So, every time the virus replicates some progeny are different. Many don’t make it. Some lose Dad’s punch; some do a few things a little better. But there are always going to be new strains. Hopefully, the nasty parts the ChiComs put in will mutate out into something more benign. Chances are they already have, which is why you’re not seeing nearly as many deaths. And if you want to get a feel for the magnitude of the pandemic, check out the Johns Hopkins page (2). I follow those curves like sports scores. Those curves for Michigan are lower than the Tigers’ standing in the AL Central. Don’t worry, Uncle is all over this (3). The delta variant is only a “variant of concern”, meaning “A variant for which there is evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease (e.g., increased hospitalizations or deaths), significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.” CDC calls the delta strain (as labeled by the WHO) “B.1.617.2 (Pango lineage)”. Not as catchy. But more catching than the original COVID-19 out of Wuhan, maybe by as much as 50%. Its spike protein – the action arm of Mr. Corona – has 15 – count ‘em – 15 mutations from the original Wuhan COVID.So, what does that mean? Seems that symptoms from it are like what most people got with Wuhan COVID – remember fewer than 1% died, and most of those were already sick with something else – cough and loss of smell seem to be less common while headache, sore throat, runny nose, and fever seem to be more common (4). That less cough thing is reassuring, as most of the nasty business from Wuhan COVID was respiratory. Kinda sounds like a cold or flu, just like coronavirus used to do before the boys and girls in the Wuhan lab started tinkering with it. Maybe that’s why we’re not seeing another surge in reported cases. Why see the doc to get a test tube brush stuck up your nose if all you have is a cold? But what else might those changes in spike protein do? To those of you who submitted to the stick: what were those little antifreeze-encapsulated RNAs supposed to do? Make your ribosomes make COVID spike protein so your immune system could react to it! But the spike protein coded for by Mr. Corona’s great great grandson delta doesn’t look exactly like that anymore. Would your charged up immune system even recognize it? If anyone knows, they’ve not written about it yet, except to mention it’s a distinct possibility (3,4).
One thing that does get written about are vaccine complications. A lot of the nasty things happening after COVID infection weren’t from direct effects of virus infection, but from the immune system’s exuberant response to the virus attacking other parts of the body, sorta like some of the things I used to take care of as a rheumatologist: those pesky “autoimmune” diseases. And guess what, some of those same things are happening from immune systems tickled by COVID spike protein made locally: blood clots, myocarditis (heart inflammation), and Guillain-Barré syndrome (immune attack on peripheral nerves aka “French polio”) (5). And of course, a lot of the vaccine recipients’ immune systems really don’t like something in the shot (6). A severe, immediate, and potentially fatal allergic reaction – anaphylaxis – has been reported to occur in 2 to 5 per million vaccine recipients (5). These complications are rare, but a few vaccine recipients have died. The vaccine adverse events reporting system (VAERS) tallied that among the people who received the more than 334 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through July 12, 2021, 6,079 died (0.0018%). The CDC cheated on that last number. Since more people got 2 shots (Moderna, Pfizer) than 1 (J&J), that percentage is actually higher. Still low, but why did the CDC have to cheat like that? At this rate, there will come a day when illness and death from the COVID vaccine will exceed the new cases caused by coronavirus. I wonder if Dr. Fauci will announce that.
So what’s in those books I plugged recently? I thought I might clarify things by posting the forward that’s in each volume.
Musing through a pandemic. A year and a half with Mr. Corona.
How did this all start? There I was, 6 months into a forced retirement and finally shaking the bitterness while beginning to enjoy all the freedoms this new state had to offer. I was nudging my honey to include me in her little “knowledge” business, Docere (“to teach”) L.L.C., which she’d set up after her NASA years to collect speaking gig fees now mainly serving as repository for royalties from her online textbook on Scientific Writing, required for the U of M class she (and others) taught. Mainly, I was looking for an angle for some new business cards, needed as all my U of M ones were obsolete. Once in, I set to work designing and I think they’re pretty cool. That row on the flip side contains logos from all the institutions with which I’ve been affiliated, going back to high school.
The card template had a spot for a URL, which I didn’t have. Looking around, I came across WordPress’ offers for blogs, which were very reasonably priced. I’d been thinking about blogging a little during my idle retired time. I was always boring my e-mail friends with too long treatises on whatever, so why not just shift that into a blog?
The blogsite sat unused for a week or two before I felt compelled to write about the life and death of my dear friend Sam, who’d passed earlier in the month of a liver ailment that could have been successfully treated had it been caught earlier. I’d actually composed the reflections earlier and emailed them out to our mutual friends. Realizing what I had, I posted it on my blog. Then I was off to the races. Anything was fair game for my blog, but what came out seemed to sort into the following areas: coronavirus, friends and family, “my brilliant career”, travel, food, music, sports, and “this life”. I chose to split off the coronavirus musings as a separate book (or books), focusing this particular effort on all those things I thought about “on the sidelines” during that year and a half Mr. Corona was so much with us. Many were prompted by email queries from friends, and I just pasted the response into my blog. I came to see certain people as my muses. After assembling everything else, and seeing how much I had, I decided to split off two more volumes, one devoted to interpersonal relationships and another to the amusements we pursued.
After nearly a year and a half of doing this, I decided to edit, organize, and annotate my writings into this little book(s). I hope you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them. The “year-and-a-half” demarcation seems pretty natural. I started the blog just as Mr. Corona was beginning to creep over here from Yuhan and many moves announcing lifting of restrictions as of July 1st make it feel like this thing might actually be coming to an end. My own COVID impact has been quite minor, mainly one of annoyance at the arbitrary and often baseless restrictions, the shutdowns, and the accusatory stares from the COVID woke commenting on behavior I was not properly exhibiting. I’ve been blessed with a good mate, good food, ample things to keep my mind occupied (including the blog), and plenty of exercise to keep my mood up and waistline down. For sure, as Mr. Prine would sing, it could have been worse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPXUnAfv70
If you’re reading this on a Kindle or in an Amazon paperback and want to print out or save something full size, like a 3X5 recipe card, you can access all of these essays and stories on my blog www.theviewfromharbal.com. Links might work better from there than from a Kindle, also.
Last month, I finally got around to reviewing and organizing the 170 odd posts I’d put up since starting this blog in January 2020. I thought that they might make up a book, strung around the theme of living through this pandemic. When I started, Mr. Corona was just making his way over from Wuhan and by this June it really felt like things were winding down, with so many restrictions set to be lifted July 1st and the Hopkins curves flattening out. Musing through a Pandemic. My Year-and-half with Mr. Corona turned into three books, volume I mainly about the virus and its effects on us (not all from the virus), volume II about the inter-personal relationships I turned to to get through, and volume III about the various indulgences we pursued to make life more bearable (there were many). I list below the brief descriptions of each book Amazon had me write.
Vol I. My year and a half with Mr. Corona. About Mr. Corona. A La-Z-Boy, a laptop, and a plague that keeps me there more than I’d like. Musings arise, and thanks to WordPress, they get recorded and distributed. With the worst of the pandemic seemingly passed, a considerable pile of said musings have accumulated. In volume I, they all concern the coronavirus one way or another. After all, it’s all we’ve been obsessing about. Reading though the various entries, you can get a pretty good idea of what just hit us, and not all the hits were from Mr. Corona.
Vol II. On the sidelines. Interpersonal relationships. Here’s to all those people I had the privilege to bump into, especially during plague times. You’ve made my life ever richer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhp7mz3Q7NQ.
Vol III. On the sidelines. Indulgences. The COVID pandemic has limited us from doing much of what we used to take for granted. However, pursuit of happiness is a strong force – yea, a God-given right – and we all managed to find ways to do just that despite the lockdowns, restrictions, and social pressures. In this volume, I recount some such forays. Some are just reminiscences of past good times, but those can be a source of happiness, too. Many recountings contain blueprints for more good times. Let ’em roll!
The books were each fat enough for Mr. Bezos to make up paperback versions. Of course, these cost more than the $3 Kindle versions, which have the advantage of working links. All the covers look alike, but the paperbacks are different from the Kindles.
You can access the books through my Amazon author’s page https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B095CPDZGP?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070 or by typing “Robert Ike” into the Amazon search bar. Be sure to use the quotation marks or you’ll get a bunch of books about Dwight D. Eisenhower.
I made a shameless plug a month ago for my second book https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/1606, this one about the funnest band ever- Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen – and all the good times they and their alumni have provided me over the past 50 plus years. It was too slim a volume for Mr. Bezos to make me a paperback on Amazon, so it’s only been available as a Kindle. I decided to ask Staples to make me up some hard copies. One defect of an actual book is you can’t access the links, and this book is full of them, mainly to music but some to key articles and 2 to full movies and one to a whole radio show. My solution is to post all the links here, then include the URL for this post in the book face page.
As a refresher, here’s the cover
And here’s the links. Lotta great music there. If you start clicking, be careful not to have Too Much Fun!
Lost in the Ozone … Again. Links
Here are the links in the book you can access now only by writing them down and pasting them in. So much easier with a Kindle, but you can’t hold it in your hand.
Bob Ike's blog 