DEC-A-7

 

SCORE!  TWICE OVER!

 THE YEAR-END LETTER-03 IS IN THE MAIL,

AND THE FIRST OF WINTER’S STORMS

SNOWS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY;

 BUT I ESCAPE TO THE EASTERN SHORE

TO MAKE THE FINAL DEER HUNT IN MARYLAND,

 AND SECURE AN EIGHT-POINT BUCK ON ITS WAY

TO THE BUTCHER SHOP AND TAXIDERMY,

 RETURNING TO SNOWED-IN DERWOOD

 

December 6, 2003

 

            It was only as long ago as February, when I remembered what real winter was like!  I was snowed in and tried to get my way down to the mailbox on snowshoes.  But that was then, and it was late into winter.   This is now, and it is early in December.  We are having a white pre-Christmas!  I scurried around on Thursday to try to do the chores that I knew might be snow impaired on Friday, like dropping off the change orders and checks at Derwood.  I just drove the fateful Bronco up the driveway in 4WD, the first such human-associated tracks to be made in the snow, next to the tracks of scores of deer in their passing—Derwood has been their’s alone, since I find the checks and contract copies still on the mantle where I left them last week, and they have suspended the application of the siding, and all other work to be done, presumably since no one could get to the worksite, the  big wheel trucks notwithstanding, with a few more of them presuming about hunting in their unanticipated day off.  I was one of the latter.  So, this note will be about a few chores completed, and about the last of my MD deer rifle season.

 

This is the last of my December Maryland events before I take off this next weekend to Pittsfield MA and the Berkshire Medical Center which will start the Dec-B-series that will include the next long trip, the last by Bronco, through New York State, Chicago and Michigan to include Christmas and family reunions.

 

‘TWAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT,

AND THE PRE-DAWN REVEALED THE SIGHT INCH ACCUMULATION OF THE “EARLY WINTER’S” FIRST SNOWFALL

 

 I got up early on Friday morning to check o the results of the snowstorm that had been predicted for this early in December, and—sure enough—there it was.  It is piled high over the vehicles and blocking up traffic, and still falling down in heavy wet snow flakes.  It could cause a problem this time since Diane Downing is scheduled to fly out at eight o’clock AM from DCA to get to Orlando to help Scott and Suze pack up for their career-long departure, that will include their commissioning service at the Orlando home church that will be one of their sponsors in their change in their lives to full-time missionary status.  They will be going to Brussels next week and will remain there for a few months of language study and preparation, then go on to Chad where they will be building clinics and schools and doing the missionary equivalent of health and community development.  Diane already knows her Christmas present from me, given along with her first copy of the year-end letter-03, a ticket to Belgium at a time of her choosing.  

 

I put the Bronco in four wheel drive—a system that had not been much used until the February blizzards of this year, although there may be a greater need for it in the northern winters of Michigan to which the faithful Bronco will be heading in two weeks’ time.  It plowed out, around stalled out vehicles, each asking me for a push or a pull.  The idea of pushing a stalled and spinning vehicle up an incline is appealing to the driver of the other car, but they would remember me well and expensively if they realized that the “push bar” and brush protector on the front of the Bronco with the winch box (my so-called “cattle catcher”)  would slice their trunk in two halves.  I declined the requests, and pulled around them and drove on to get to the highway which had ten mile per hour traffic through the slush.  In pre-dawn, with over half a foot of overhanging snow still being carried on the Bronco, I made it all the way to the DCA in only an hour, never having a chance to stop to take it out of four wheel drive.  I might say that I will miss this kind of service, but, then, the difference of this and the new Audio A-4 is that the A-4 is in perpetual all-time four-wheel drive!

 

I went on to work, and set to doing the last of my envelope stuffing.  I had tried to get the color printer to make a full color copy of the “color collage” of two pages of the 03-letter, but at 651 Megs for each page, the printer would have to take overnight for each page printed.  I asked one of my junior gurus to help me resolve this, and two of them worked it out that they could print the color pages on two different printers, but not in time to get the copies out for this weekend.  I told them to proceed, and that I will later add the color collage pages for your year-end letter when I visit you, but then went to the post office with the two plastic US Mail tubs with the annual Christmas year-end-03 letter, which is now “in the mail.”  I hope you enjoy it, especially since each has included the hand-written personalized note and a bunch of appropriate color pictures from our common experiences of the 2003 year.  It may take you just a little bit longer to read the photojournalism of the entire book-length “oeuvre,” but perhaps you will have long dark and stormy nights of your own coming up soon, for which this bit of light reading is ideally suited!

 

I went to the Department of Surgery where a young fellow named Joshua Katz is located in an office I used to have in the Department, and he wanted to help me “archive this extremely valuable resource” of the slides I had taken in  Nigeria over three decades ago.  We worked at the slide scanner, until equipment failure forced us to back off, but I had hoped to carry a CD rather than a carrousel of slides to the Berkshire Medical Center to give this “Tropical Surgery” as one of four talks I am giving up there, but I will still have to give the talk from a slide base.  The fun talk for them will be the two carrousel “Trekking through Kashmir” at their Saturday night “International Night” for which I was the first and continuing speaker for the decade or more they have held this celebration at Christmas time.  I will carry in my CD unit to install a software program called ACDC on my laptop, so that I may be able to work some weekend with the scanner at home.

 

I received a warm and wonderful note from The Reverend Doctor Bob Croskery after his return home from the Thanksgiving week trip that began with their visit to Derwood and meeting me.   I replied and sent him a note on the subject of his highest ambition—the Parker double shotgun, the highest work of that art.  Subsequently, I have learned from Bill Webster about the possible availability of just such a classic Parker on the Eastern Shore—could it be that we might be able to secure this supreme object of desideratum?  I had previously sent Bev Croskery the child’s story book she had wanted me to have so that she can autograph it, and I included a copy of “Out of Assa.”  They are wonderful people in a great family.

 

As I prepared to leave the office to drive to the Eastern Shore, Sandy Shelor, our interior decorator designer called me with practical advice about paint colors and the timing for putting in the orders for the major furniture pieces to be ready by late February after the house should be finished and ready for furnishing.  She had said that the items such as lamps should not require long to fulfill orders, but the special custom furniture, such as sofas for which we had selected fabrics for upholstery and the chairs and ottomans and desks and tables should be ordered now in order to have them ready for moving in.  She has impeccable taste, and makes good choices, so I go along with what she recommends

 

ECUADOR BECOMES A POSSIBLITIY,

WITHIN THE NEAR-TERM FUTURE,

AS I WORK WITH SEVERAL STUDENTS

ON MEDICAL MISSION POSSIBILITIES,

NOW, FINALLY, ALSO THE SUBJECT OF A NEW BOOK

 

For that same time period—February—I was meeting with Kevin Bergman in my office who would like to have me plan an excursion with him—his third mission trip with me.  If the Philippine trip is now disrupted by the change in plans of the Taiwan travel, then I should either be home during that time or I could go somewhere else.  One of those elsewheres could be the long postponed trip to Ecuador to visit Edgar Rodas, a surgeon friend of mine with whom I had once operated in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and who had been a member of the ACS panel when we each presented papers at the American College of Surgeons in Chicago three years ago.  While Kevin was still in my office, we wrote to Edgar Rodas by email to suggest that Kevin, I and two of Kevin’s classmates, each native Spanish-speakers, might come to Ecuador.  I had been hoping to do this for decades, and then to climb Chimborazo or Cotopaxi.  While Kevin was in the office with me, I could write to Edgar, and then give him the news that is startling to me after waiting for five years for its fulfillment.

 

Over eight years ago, I had met with Ronald G. Landes of Landes Bioscience Publishers, and contracted with him to write and edit a book entitled “Surgery and Healing in the Developing World.” 

 

I rapidly wrote my chapters of this book, including the first chapters while sitting in the Providence Rhode Island Airport awaiting pickup for the Boston Marathon of five years ago.  I had coordinated the contributions of many contributors and sent them all in with the their illustrations, and a flyer was made up that announced the early availability of the book in time for the ACS plenary session program I had just referred to at the Clinical Congress three years ago, at which both Edgar Rodas and I had participated.  These book flyers were placed on the chairs of each seat in the ACS McCormack Place theatre in which this first ever ACS plenary session on “surgery in the developing world” and training to address unmet needs abroad was held.

 

Then, I never again heard from the publisher.  I wrote emails almost monthly, and got now response, until I got only the message that the email address had disappeared.  I called the phone number listed in the directory assistance, to find the phone was non-functioning.  So, this is at the same time that the completed text on Surgical Endocrinology is typeset and camera-ready by J & S Publishing, just as it pulls the promised printing of that completed book and scuttled the already written “Year of Fulbrightness” since it was going bankrupt.  This was a gloomy development, with all that effort in finishing three complete books which die at the printers, just as Kurt Johnson had pulled the plug also on promoting “Out of Assa” his first –ever foray into the unknown world of the “trade books.”

 

Each of the contributors has asked me repeatedly when the book would be coming out, and after referring each to the publisher and there getting the same non-response I was getting, I had despaired of ever hearing of it again.  As all this gloomy futility had closed around me (only my “year-end annual reports” seem to be getting finished, illustrated, copied and mailed out—since there is only a single person responsible for each step in the complex production of these numbers!) I got an abrupt message from Ron Landes, saying “We are keen to publish the book by Spring of 2004 and page proofs will be forthcoming in February.) See Dec-A-4.

 

So, I was able to relay this good news to Edgar Rodas, a fellow contributor to my book, and to tell him that the WHO had contributed support as a “handbook” publication.

 

 

THROUGH THE STORM, TO THE EASTERN SHORE,

ANOTHER EXPERIENCE OF SITTING THROUGH FOUL WEATHER, WATCHING A FIELD, PREVIOUSLY FOR DAYS:

THIS TIME FOR ONLY A FEW MINUTES!

 

Bill Webster had called me to invite me to his farm and to the VoTech School to hunt deer with him.  Craig was on call this weekend, but he would leave the 7mm out for me at his office, since my gun safe is so carefully packed away, that, like everything else I had put into storage at Derwood in anticipation of getting a few items out at Christmas, it is irretrievable.  I went on through the wintry weather of sleety rain to Princess Anne in Somerset County, and drove to Bill Webster’s farm.  He gave me the discouraging news that after having seen so many deer all through the pre-season (on one occasion he had counted 38 deer coming out at twilight before he quit counting, just to look over a couple of the big bucks in preparation for the season) that he had been out every evening at the VoTech School and each morning at the farm and had seen---not a single deer!

 

I quickly changed my clothes into the hunting gear I had crammed into the Bronco, and we went over to the VoTech School, arriving at around 4:00 PM.  I put on the new Gore-Tex camo rain suit and went up to the platform in the sleeting wind—not a good thing for my URI and its productive cough.  Bill and I had worked out a deal whereby if a single deer came out, he wanted me to shoot it.  If two came out, and I would allow a single deer a time to see if it would attract any others out into the field, he would get the one on the right after I got the one on the left.  If lots of deer came out, “When the smoke clears, see what is lying down!”

 

Bill was looking behind him ten minutes later as I whistled several times, since in the wind he did not hear me the first few times.  I pointed.  In front of me, about two hundred yards away, a single doe had come out in the field, probably tricked by the heavy overcast into assuming that it was later than it was.  The doe walked further away and to the left to be about 280 yards out.  I waited two minutes, and then saw a flicker as another deer came in from my right. A quick glance showed me it was a buck and a good one.  So, I figured Bill would get that one, and I touched off at the doe.  The doe fell down.  The buck ran.  The buck was out at 280 yards when it looked back.  I said to Bill, “Do you want me to get him?”  “Yes!”  At the sound of my shot, the buck dropped.  And the doe got up.  I was not even looking toward her, and Bill said “The doe is walking away!”  I said “Shoot it!”  As he shot she jumped the ditch and entered the deep woods.

 

We were concluded in our hunt at 4:30, and we now had to “take care of business.”  Our prior hunts were all day with nothing to show for it, and now we had a quarter hour hunt and had to retrieve two deer. Bill went forward to the ditch the doe had jumped and found no sign whatever.  I went to the buck and found a rally nice trophy.  I dragged the eight point buck to the road way—and realized that this animal outweighed me, as I stopped repeatedly to rest in pulling it to the vehicle.  I took a few pictures, of course, and then went to try to help Bill find the doe.  By now it was so dark that we could not see anything at all, even with the help of the flashlight.  So, we left the doe until late morning when we would look again.  I said to him, I did not want to finance another aerial search for the doe the way I had futile for a downed moose!

 

We carried the buck to Bill’s farm and hoisted him on the gimble and I dressed him out.  He is a good clean kill and is a nice representative sample of an Eastern Shore buck, so I put together the kind of “plaque” I was envisioning for each of the trophies in the Game Room at Derwood, which would read as follows:

 

EASTERN SHORE MARYLAND WHITETAIL

EIGHT-POINT BUCK

 

Odocoelius virginiensis

 

Glenn W. Geelhoed

 

Somerset County VoTech School, with Bill Webster

December 5, 2003, 4:30 PM in cold windy rain

7 mm Mag at 270 yards, 153 pounds

 

 

Bill and I went to eat at the Bobby Murphey’s in the historic Washington Inn—where George Washington had slept. A book written by “Gath,” the Civil War correspondent George Alfred Thompson (“GATH”) is entitled the “Entailed Hat” which tells the story of the classic mansions here in Princess Anne and the slave trade through a tunnel cave from the Tiegel Mansion to the Manokin River.  I met Bob Murphey, the proprietor, and his mother who still lives in part of the Washington Inn’s historic quarters and borrowed the book from Bill to read about this Eastern Shore history.

 

We watched the Outdoor Life network to see pictures of deer hunting in Pennsylvania, and got our juices running for the next morning’s hunt here at his farm—especially after one seep with the big spotting light revealed about a dozen deer feeding in the fields outside his house.  I listened through the night as a rainstorm blew in and turned to sleet and ice.

 

The next day is more classically like what we have had before: I crawled into the treestand and watched intently as the first light broke, and shivered in the cold, and saw---nothing.  It is odd.  Our deer hinting has been feast and famine.  Bill wanted me to stay the night and hunt the evening twilight, but I was worried about the storm and the getting back to Derwood and the packing out of the Bronco and refilling it with what would be needed for my trips forthcoming.  We went to breakfast in Princess Anne and talked to some good ole boys that were deer hunting in much the same manner as we had. We then drove up to the Delaware state line to Jim’s custom butchery, to find a sign on the door that said they could accept no more deer, since they were full.  IN the cooler were several big deer with two over a thirty inch spread.

 

Bill had heard that a new female taxidermist had set up shop in Princess Anne, so we gave her a call.  She was not in.  I called Parker’s Taxidermy to see how the two deer I had sent in last year and the fox I had given them two years ago had gone in their progress.  I was startled to hear that they had done nothing!   I had been worried that they would be finished before the game room was, and now I found out that the mounts had not even been started through processing!  I knew this would mean that Don King might not be alive by the time we would be able to show hi the big buck from Pine Creek Canyon.  So, the new eight point buck will be going to the new girl in Princess Anne as Parker’s Taxidermy tries to “get out from behind their backlog.”  A new custom meat processor that Bill found in the county said at least he would have all the venison processed by Wednesday—and that is too soon for me to store it properly in any freezer.  So the taxidermy (like that of North American Taxidermy in Rockville, and Knight’s Taxidermy in Anchorage) are too late, while the deer butchery is too early for my accommodation in storing and using each!

 

UNPACKING THE BRONCO,

AND RE-PACKING FOR THE NEXT TRIPS

 

            I will now have to go through the sixteen years of archaeological stratigraphic layers in the Bronco to unpack it and to re-pack it for the last trip up through New York, Chicago and Christmas in Michigan.  I will now shift to the year-end holidays and the planning for the New Year, and all the activities that may be postponed to it from the completion of many of the plans of this eventful year.  It is winter outside— very pretty looking tableaux, but it is also cold and inhospitable for those not prepared. I hope to have Derwood turned into the warm and happy home by this time next year, when I may be transformed from the homeless waif on the road to someone with a fixed home address!

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