July 2, 1014 Wednesday "J is for gin"

First Words

      …thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician

                            by Glenn Feole, M.D.

        "Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy 

        laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote

Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com

Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

July 2, 2014 Wednesday

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

     “BS”  (blood sugar)

Interesting Name:

     Tarzan

Anecdote:

     While discussing her son's diet, a Mother laughingly told me that her seven year old didn't understand "PBJ".  She looked at him patiently and explained in a slow, melodious voice, "The 'P' is for Peanut, the 'B' is for 'butter."  

 As she was taking a breath, he quickly interrupted and said, "I know, Mom.  The J is for gin."

               Westport, Connecticut 1987-1998

Poetry:

Let Me Please Look Into My Window

Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.

Let me walk up Broadway past Zak's, past the Melody Fruit Store,
past Stein's Eyes, past the New Moon Inn, past the Olympia.

Let me leave quietly by Gate 29

and fall asleep as we pull away from the ramp
into the tunnel.

Let me wake up happy, let me know where I am, let me lie still,
as we turn left, as we cross the water, as we leave the light.

     by Gerald Stern from This Time: New and Selected Poems

Coup d'essai:

PART IX  Migrant Health Care Journal, 2002

      Last Friday, the two nurses working with me were Angel and Angela, and the young man who translated for me was Hispanic, with the name “Innocent.”  

9/4/2002:  

      I needed a prescription filled and I heard that there was a pharmacy in Newton Grove.  I called and talked with an older pharmacist.  When I asked what his hours were, he could tell from that I wasn’t a native in this small town.  

     A hesitant but gentle voice asked me, “Do you know where you are?”  I told him that, amazing as it was to me, I had an inkling about where I was.   I explained that I was the new pediatrician down the road at the Migrant Center.  “Well, we’ve been here for over fifty years.  Just bring your prescription down.  I can’t wait to meet you.” 

      When I drove over after clinic hours, the store, “New Grove Drug Co.” was on the main circle that composes Newton Grove…right next to the ABC Store, the tanning salon, the fish and bait store, and a Mexican takeout restaurant.  The pharmacy was tiny and filled with knickknacks, such as a little square bottle of special menthol, “a few drops placed in your handkerchief does wonders for your cold.”  I hadn’t seen many people walking around with handkerchiefs.  

The shelves were ancient and sparse.  Just one sample of Crest toothpaste, the large size, next to the smaller size, then Colgate, etc.  The overhead was not large.  The small prescription desk was at ground level and small.  There were five of us standing there waiting as the pharmacist carried on a nice conversation with the older woman whom he was helping.  One older farmer kidded her that he didn’t have enough money.  “Well, its after 5.  The bank is closed,” quipped the thirty year old man sitting in a stuffed, tattered vinyl chair waiting for his own prescription.  The farmer turned around with a smile and said, “I’ve been in town a lot of years.  If I wanted to get in the bank now, I could get in the bank.  They know me pretty well.”  

     At that point the grey haired pharmacist came down and shook my hand.  He was glad I was in town.  “That Migrant Health Center has been here for twenty years and they do a good service.  I remember when they opened.”  I asked him how long he had been at that pharmacy.  “Thirty-eight years.  And I love doing this job right now just as much as I did my first year.”  He smiled warmly.  

     “I started working here as a teenager and the owner, who started this place in 1952 (which was my birthday, I informed him) said that if I went to college and studied pharmacy, he would sell me the store when I came back.  And he did.”  It was a happy, warm environment and, in parting, he said if there was anything he could do for me, just to let him know.  So much for the pharmaceutical chains or for the embittered mom and pop stores accosted by the large HMO’s.  He was doing fine. 

Even in as isolated a place as Newton Grove, the staff sent out for Chinese for lunch.  It was from The Chinese Chef in nearby Dunn, and, of course, was delicious.  The quantities were also on a country scale and will keep me eating for several days.

Favorite Musician/song:

Doobie Brothers, "South City Midnight Lady"

     The band I was in, Synergy, did several Doobie Brothers songs.  Just like the Stones, everyone would inevitably, instantly, get up and dance as soon as we started China Grove or Long Train Running.  However, this song is gentle, sad, atmospheric and longing, with their classic all-encompassing, lush guitar work in the background.

Favorite Book/author:

Julie and Romeo, by Jeanne Ray.

     Where was she all those years wasting away working was a nurse in Nashville, Tennissee?  What a voice…humorous, touching, perceptive, heart-warming…a portrayal of a loving family.


  Here is a summary of some of the books mentioned so far:

Banyai, Istvan

    Zoom

Collins, Billy

    poetry

Dellilo, Don.   

     White Noise

     Endzone

Joyce, James.  

     Dubliners

Keats

    On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time

    Ode on a Grecian Urn

    La Belle Dame sans Merci

Lahiri, Jhumpa

    short stories: The Third and Final Continent, Unaccustomed Earth

Maine, Charles Eric

     He Owned the World

Malamud, Bernard

     The Magic Barrel

Mark Twain

    Autobiography

Martin, George R. R.

    "The Sandkings"

Melviile

     Moby Dick

New Yorker

Pritchett, V. S.  Collected Short Stories

     The Nest Builder

     Blind Love

Ray, Jeanne

    Julie and Romeo

Sacks, Oliver

    Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Childhood

Salinger

     Franny and Zooey

Sterne, Laurence   

     Tristram Shandy

Thoreau
     Walden

Updike

    poetry

Valente, Kathryn

    The Girl Who Circumnavigated the World in a Ship of Her Own Invention

   

Favorite Movie/DVD:

The Band's Visit

    Exquisite, quiet, touching.  A Muslim "symphony" (a small band) from Egypt is sent into Israel to give a performance at their "cultural center".  (As the exuberant Israeli woman who owns the small store says, "Cultural Center?  We have no culture here.")  They get lost and spend the night in a small Israeli town, mixing gently with the people there.  An amazing and beautiful cultural ecumenism with heart and poignancy…and a commentary on the human condition of loneliness and longing.  Very deep.  The symphonic performance at the end brings tears.  A favorite.