You Chose These As The Top Ten. And I Am Sure You Were Right.

Getting More From Les has passed another milestone. Yesterdays Tick Tick Tick was the 400th posting in ChicagoNow. It’s a good moment to look back over the past 100 blogs, and recap and update the 10 most widely read posts of that batch (yes, I do know how many readers there are, even if I don’t know who those readers might be.) As a frame of reference, the last 100 posts were all composed on or after May of 2019. Here we go!

Ten Most Read Posts from Getting More from Les (postings #301-#400)

10. Hey James Holzhauer, I Lost on Jeopardy Too! The end of a champion’s reign. I’m afraid the day will come when I will be writing about another Jeopardy ending. I hope it is far in the future.

9. Happy Anniversary to Our Home on the Pond. Three years in our new forever home. It is really suiting us well during the pandemic.

8. Another PSA for P.S.A. My annual reminder to make sure the men in your life are prostate aware and having their blood tested for Prostate Specific Antigen. I worry that men are skipping their annual physicals now, and we will miss opportunities to make early diagnoses of prostate cancer.

7. We Need Good COVID Tests and Testing. A Pathologist’s View. Early on in the pandemic, I realized that we lacked sufficient rapid and testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its antibodies. That has not changed.

6. Did a Vegetarian Diet Cure Prostate Cancer? I Need More Evidence. I wasn’t buying it then, and I am not buying it now. But nothing wrong with reducing the number of animal products in our diet.

5. Goodbye to a Fellow Pathologist, and to Mary Dixon Too. A bon voyage to a long time associate on his retirement, and a (brief) farewell to one of the morning voices on WXRT. George is now quarantining in his home, Mary is giving us the news on WBEZ. Good to hear her voice again.

4. Disasters are Not New. Why Does This One Feel So Different? A picture gallery appraisal of where we are, and where we have been.

3*. Is Terry Boer’s Autobiography the Bore of a Lifetime? Although this post was 3rd most read post since May of 2019 it was actually published in 2018. You still search for it every time the former sports-talk host appears on the Score.

3. John Mulaney Says Middle-Aged Men Don’t Make Friends. OK, Boomer. A riff on Mulaney’s Saturday Night Live monologue, back when Saturday night was still Saturday night.

2. Is $23 Million CEO Compensation the Reason Your Hospital Bill is So High? A year-ago look at the effects of the merger of 2 hospital networks. And since COVID, consolidation in health care is predicted to increase at an even more rapid rate.

1. Haiku for Our Time: COVID 19 Edition. 170 syllables about the pandemic, back when we had high hopes for a short lockdown and a rapid recovery.

Where will the next 100 posts take us? Who knows how the world will turn, but whatever happens I hope to be here writing about it. Please be with me reading about it.

For those wondering what was causing our wall ticking — look for the answer next week.

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There Is Ticking In The Walls

There’s ticking in the walls.

It started a few weeks ago. A tick-tick-tick. Steady and incessant in the wall of our bedroom. The sound is not from a clock nor is it the whirring of our ceiling fan. It is loudest at night; at least that is how it seems to me.

Barb hears it too. But she has a portable fan on her nightstand. The fan keeps her cool and as an added benefit drowns out the sound for her and the kitten at her hip. But I still hear the tick-tick-tick every night.

There’s more ticking in the walls.

We think it is coming from one of the air conditioning vents. It’s the vent that we relocated so it wouldn’t be obstructed by the dresser and the flat-screen TV.

So I unscrew the vent cover. It isn’t that easy to do. The hex screw heads are small and I don’t have a wrench that works with them. I find a pair of needle-nosed pliers. With those, I can grasp the screw heads and carefully turn them counter-clockwise to loosen them. I release both screws and take off the vent cover. I feel around but can’t detect any obstructions or any material in the duct that might be knocking and ticking. I can’t find a thing. But when I screw the vent back on there is blissful silence.

And then–it’s another night and I am awake at 4 a.m.

There’s still ticking in the walls.

I am imagining the possibilities. Is the noise something in the bowels of the HVAC system? Or something buried deeper under our house? Is that why this was the last unbuilt lot in this development of 300 houses? Did something keep other potential buyers away?

Perhaps the ticking is signifying not the past but the future. Maybe it’s a doomsday clock counting viral particles spreading through the atmosphere or measuring the micro degrees the planet is warming. At 4 a.m. it all seems possible.

In the light of the day I know it is all nonsense. The sunrise was magnificent this morning as I sped down the Tollway. Reds and oranges and dark grey clouds. I know the house can’t warn me of catastrophe. As long as we are careful, all will be well.

But why is there ticking in the walls?

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photo credit: bjcoving Pictures of My Random Items via photopin (license)

Donald Trump Is No Doctor Ben Casey

We have been inundated with the news that Donald Trump successfully remembered for a few minutes the sequence “person, woman, man, camera, TV” as part of his recent cognitive skills test. Well, I can remember five words with a similar cadence, and they are from a lot more than a few minutes ago. In fact, they are from the 1960s. I first heard the words in 1961 when I was five years old. My cognitive skills must be pretty good because I have no trouble remembering “Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity.”

A memorable moment in John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s inauguration speech? No way. The recitation was the introduction to each week’s episode of Ben Casey, the TV drama about earnest young physician Dr. Casey (Vince Edwards) and his older mentor, Dr. Zorba. Each week the two docs would battle deadly diseases on ABC, while also waging a ratings battle with much more handsome, but much less broody, James Kildare (a pre-Thorn Birds Richard Chamberlain) on rival NBC’s Dr. Kildare.

Being the curious sort, I decided to see how Dr. Casey would compare with President Trump. Let’s see how they stack up!

Dr. Ben Casey Vs President Trump

For me, Dr. Ben has it nailed. And hey, I just remembered another 5 words I want you to remember: Vote for Biden in November!

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Five Books I Read Years Ago That Still Have a Message for Today

Book read long ago still have a message for today. — Books read long ago still have a message for today.

Remember the bestselling book from the 1990’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten”? It was filled with truisms like “Don’t hit anybody” and “Be nice.” Good stuff, but in talking with an old friend recently I realized we didn’t learn it all in kindergarten. We also learned some important life lessons in Mr. Wohlberg’s 8th-grade class at the Eugene Field School in Rogers Park.

Our class featured a daily hour for “Reading Club.” This was the first year in which we were assigned short novels and works of non-fiction for reading and analysis. The book list was carefully curated, and in looking back I recognize that each had a lesson, one that we can also apply in our current time.

The Eighth Grade Book List 1971-1972

Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther. This green covered paperback was a series of sketches about a family in England just before the onset of World War II. I remember it as a warm look at the nation, just before immense tragedy and great changes were about to take place. Knowing that England survived can bring hope and optimism to us who are now at the precipice of another world-altering event.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. Another warm-hearted tale set in England, following the long career of a sweet, under-assuming teacher in a boy’s boarding school. Sort of a pre-Dead Poet’s Society. The take-away to remember? Kind and gentle can have more effect than bluster and braggadocio.
The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck. A family saga of early 20th century China. Not every character is a champion, but by studying this novel of other people and other cultures, we can learn not to demonize the unfamiliar in our world.
Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy. Yes, JFK wrote (or had ghost-written) this book while he was a Senator from Massachusetts. Life episodes from 8 U.S. Senators who took actions considered by Kennedy to be heroic. Current re-imaging of history may have cast some of his assessments of heroism in doubt, but the concept that our elected representatives should be courageous–hey, what a wonderful, novel, idea!
Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. Probably the least known of these books, it tells the tale of 11 men (sorry, no women in the bunch–or in the group of Senators in Kennedy’s book) who were instrumental in advancing science, in introducing and promoting the concept that many diseases were caused by minute organisms, and in discovering ways to fight those bugs. Imagine that, science advancing mankind! Think that could have any relevance in our era of anti-vaxers and COVID deniers?

Great lessons, though hopefully, my education didn’t end in 8th grade. Now more than ever, we need to be life-long learners. It’s the only way to survive.

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Four Things I Know Doing Crossword Puzzles In Ink

A messy , but completed, crossword puzzle. — A messy completed crossword puzzle.

It gets messy.

There are scratch-outs and write-overs and margin-scribbles. Some of the little square boxes, originally white, now are so intensely filled that only I can tell what letter I have ultimately figured out is the right one.

And that’s the way I like it. Doing my puzzles in ink, I see every step I have taken, every twist and turn and wrong approach. No nice clean erasures.

Those scrawls are what I look on fondly and with immense satisfaction as I review the completed challenge. Those scrawls are where I learn.

It has only been for the last year or so that I have been a daily crossword puzzle zealot. I had been known to take a puzzle magazine with me on a poolside vacation and I have killed some time post-surgery with goofy Cryptic Crosswords. But the obsession to solve everything that the Tribune throws at me, including 3 challenges on Sunday, erupted out of nowhere. And of course, it is a nice distraction during the COVIDaplooza.

And while I have been at it, I have learned a few problem-solving tools; tools that are helpful in more than just the crosswords. They help with solving real-life problems too.

Look for a way in: Sometimes at first glance, the puzzle will seem overly difficult, filled with clues I have no idea about–things like opera and Australian geography or Ethiopian pronouns. But with a little digging, I can usually find a clue or two that makes sense. Maybe it is a simple fill-in-the-blank. Or an easy reference to Mel Ott, the old-time Giants outfielder who is a crossword creator’s favorite shortie. Fill in enough of those, and the trickier ones become easier. Same with any problematic task–figure out what you know, then use that to work on what you don’t.
Find the fork in the road, and take it: Is the right answer to “Long forgotten President” with 8 letters, when you know the last letter is “n” Harrison, or is it Buchanan? Don’t spend forever dithering. Pick one and see where it takes you. Undecided about which vendor to buy your supplies from? Sure, do your homework, but eventually, you’ve got to choose. You can always backtrack later–if you have to.
You may be right, I may be crazy: I could swear that the answer to “The album with the song “Just You ‘n’ Me” at 10 Down is “Chicago XI.” But maybe, just maybe, it is really “Chicago VI.” So get rid of that misplaced “X” and swap in the “V.” All of a sudden it all makes more sense. And maybe that prostate cell I was convinced was a cancer cell isn’t. All of a sudden the diagnosis of benign atrophy becomes much clearer. Let’s do a special stain to prove it.
Love your messes: Every messy square on the finished puzzle is one I struggled over. But in the end, I got it right. Just as every step we take in initiating some new testing may be messy. Time frames are relative, supplies ephemeral, especially in this resources-limited COVIDenvironment. But if in the end when we can look back and say we did it, the previous messes make it all the more rewarding.

So keep on plugging and solving and giving your all. Don’t erase your mistakes-remember them. And we will get this right.

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Adventures in Cat Land

Barb and I went on a road trip yesterday.

A friend had posted a link to an animal shelter in the south suburbs, a community we had barely heard of and never been to before. Our friend thought we might be interested in a cat that was ready for adoption.

The kitty was a nine-year-old male Persian named Billy, neutered, declawed, and in need of a new home. We thought he could make a nice companion for Princess, our own neutered, declawed nine-year-old teeny-weeny cat. Princess has spent most of her life with a canine companion and might now be a little lonely, but since Barb has yet to convince me to get another dog (never say never) a 2nd cat seemed like a possible option.

Barb picked me up from my lab, conveniently located half-way between our far-north home and the far-south shelter. I grabbed a cardboard box for a potential transport container, found a blanket in the trunk with which to line the box, and off we went. The landscape turned more rural in appearance with rolling hills and forest preserves. It was hard to believe we were still in Cook County.

After 40 minutes we reached the shelter, a small cottage set back from the road. A weathered sign on the door asked that we knock, receive a number, and then return to our car to await a phone call before admission. We knocked, and an attendant answered the door, looking as startled as we were. “What do you want?” she asked. We told her we were looking for a particular cat, and without much interest, she pointed out the cat room. “In there.”

The room was stacked with cages, many containing small, howling, sort-of-cute kittens. Not what we were looking for. Another attendant wandered in and I asked her about the Persian we had seen online.

“Oh, do you mean the male or the female?” she asked.

“Huh?” Barb and I both responded.

The attendant pointed to a double-wide cage in the bottom row and told us, “They are brother and sister, they can’t be separated.”

And sure enough, a pair of long-haired kitties were lolling in the cage; Billy, the grey-and-white cat we had seen online and a second, tabby-like long-hair with funky eyes. As we watched, GG pounced on the second cat in what did not seem at all to be a playful assault.

We left empty-handed. We were not ready to adopt a pair of cats to disturb Princess, especially when one of them seemed to have a mean streak. As my lab associate said, the shelter had put on quite a bait-and-switch.

So Princess still has no companion. I suspect Barb’s dog dreams have been reignited. I’m not sure how long I can hold out! Check back here for regular updates…

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photo credit: haileyxb dsc01537_v1 via photopin (license)

Did Hugh Downs Make Me What I Am Today?

My boyhood TV hero died this week. You probably think I am talking about Carl Reiner, who passed away June 29th. After all, Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of my favorite TV shows of all time. But as a pre-school kid, I just knew the faces in front of the camera, and Mr. Reiner’s portrayal of Alan Bradie, funny as it was, was just a small part of the show. He wasn’t even as important as always dumped on Mel Coolie. And I could only watch the show once a week; no binge-watching back then. So Reiner didn’t really make much of an impression on me in the early 1960s.

No, the man I watched on TV day in and day out, the man this young kid aspired to be when I grew up, wasn’t an actor or a writer, and certainly no comedian. My hero was Hugh Downs, who died July 1st at age 99.

If you know the name and if you remember him at all, it is probably for his stints as host of Today or possibly 20/20, ABC’s news magazine answer to 60 Minutes. In a New York Times obituary discussing his career, one can learn a lot about his time on those two shows, as well as his years as the announcer and second banana to Jack Paar on Paar’s iteration of The Tonight Show.

But you must read way down to the 16th paragraph of the article to find a brief one-sentence mention of the 11 years Downs spent as host of the TV game show Concentration. But for me, that was Hugh Downs. That is where I met him every morning.

It was a simple game, call out some numbers, match some prizes, solve a simple rebus puzzle, and go home a winner. No need to know trivia, or how much a week’s supply of Alpo dog food cost, or what a survey said. It was the perfect show for a five-year-old with a good memory and an innate ability to solve word puzzles. It would be the launching pad for my life of TV game-show appearances (It’s Academic and Jeopardy!, the Family Feud near-miss) and Password games with friends that are as bitterly fought as a Bears-Packers game in the Halas days. And Mr. Downs was the perfect low-key host. He never got in the way of the game

So Hugh, while I salute all the other great TV work you did, when I write my book Concentration will never have to wait until paragraph 16! I’ll put it right there at the top.

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