Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July

The temperature is 90* outside on the deck where I have been cooking literately and figuratively for the past two hours. The cook out was small mainly for my benefit. Everyone is out doing other things or being ill. That is all right. I enjoyed myself. Dianne came out and folded clothes. I cooked dogs, sausage and chicken tid bits and listened to NPR. I am beginning to shy away from NPR on national holidays because all you get is historical footnote about the holiday or tear jerkers about the latest causalities in the Middle East. Today was not bad but Sad story about service woman Cpl. Holly Charette. Who died June 23? That was sad. Therefore, I have enough materials for breakfasts and dinner these coming weeks. I have even been good about homework. I worked on statistic I will need for tomorrows quarterlies meeting and I Also have struggled all weekend on the website I do for my buddy Mack. I am all set for the week. I wish I had better numbers for the meeting but I will get by. I even called my other buddy Mac who is now residing in a long term care facility in North Carolina. Mac is 73—I used to practice a weird form of psychology at his clinics more then 20 years ago. Wow, that is hard to believe. Alice his wife died a couple of years ago and he has been slipping to the point the kids intervened and brought him to the boarders of the great South. Mac had been living in Nampa Idaho where he ran a children’s clinic for a bunch of years following his retirement from Idaho State School and Hospital. That is where I met Mac more then 30 years ago. I was there doing an internship in Behavior Modification. Much of this story is chronicled in a volume named C.M.A.T. Community Medical Assistance Team. A short lived project rendered by VISTA volunteers, some Born Again medical types (not me) and college drop-out (me) and a lot of returning Viet Nam vets looking to establish them selves as something medical but they were not sure just what (see the Medix history which I still hold on to as the beginning of the Nurse Practioner programs of today) and lots of grant money which was flowing like water from stones stuck my Moses’ rod. I call Mac when I can get a hold of him. We were good for each other I owe him a lot. It is too bad no one will ever read CMAT. The novel was not bad for someone right out of the chute. I had the rough draft done but lost in the back of a green Chevrolet when an old X decided to steal back her vehicle. I have never had the ambition to sit down and rewrite the piece. I had better hurry up though ho know when your time is due and I am on the streets a lot now. Mac does not spend much time in his room, this is good, but he has given up trying to figure out his cell phone. His phone will ring to the nursed station if he is not there. Sometimes they will go fetch him but most of the time I elect to try to get hold of him another time. There is hour difference between us and I get him in the later evening when I am coming home on the train—this works.

I seldom do fire works too much bother and I want to have some sleep behind me before the meeting in the a.m. So, more quiet to night. Happy 4^th.