04-JUN-B-4

THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

IN A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER DAY IN DERWOOD,

AS I GO BACK TO WORK AND PLANS FOR A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF ACTIVITY PATTERN FOR A SUMMER SCHEDULE CHANGED FROM THE LAST SEVERAL ABROAD

June 21---25, 2004

I have been running—hard and long. It has been warm, of course, but it has also been raining about every day. Yet, because of the long summer evenings with the longest day of the year giving added running time, I can come home after the rains and after working and still get in an hour and a half, running in the last fringes of daylight, among browsing deer and their fawns around Derwood, finding my way amid fireflies and trying not to inhale mosquitoes which come out with gnats to swarm at 8:30 when the warblers and wood thrush get into high gear in “gleaning the insects as they emerge at day’s end.

I had been toying with the idea of going up to Michigan to attend my fortieth reunion of Calvin College, and even looked with interest at the special fares United Airline sent me to get me one way to Detroit for $59 if I acted on June 22. I would then have to rent a car and drive on up, but I checked and the range was for fourteen days hence and also the going rate just now on the most economic flights would be $1250 with a car rental. No thanks—that is a lot to pay for a dinner and a tour of the Prince Center and is about how much the College would like to be dunning me for annually. I am highly annoyed with anyone who suggests that I become their residual income with a guaranteed flow to them of outrageous sums monthly or annually for no other reason than drawing breath. I must have the world’s fanciest security system not installed, complete with motion detectors, smoke, heat detectors, with a “dog gate” and a crashing glass detector and wireless sensors built in at every window as a substitute for them drilling the windows and letting out the rare gases voiding the warranties. Three new sensors were installed to keep the breakfast room—with its windows that one could easily drive a pickup truck through, while the powder room and small crawl windows in the basement are all monitored—all for installation charges of several thousand dollars. Still, there is no key pad, and most importantly NO PHONE. It is not connected to anything, and even if it were, it is not going to be able to alert anyone anywhere. Yet, I get an automatic AmEx charge of a hindered dollars a month for this Security Service. Whoa! There is no service! And, even if it were to be hooked up, why would anyone do this before cutting the telephone line first, for which reason they want to cell a dedicated cellphone with its own monthly charges that cannot be used for anything else. I rebelled last several months, and today’s bill from AmEx has the same hit for this last month’s non-service. I am just itching to become someone’s regular cash cow for nonexistent services, and believe I will hop off this trolley. The hardware is all there now, for whomever believes that this system is protective. No way am I paying for the dog gates without a dog, or the alarm system without a phone, nor anyone who is going to set up an account to automatically bill me whether or not anything is being done. I had checked my AmEx last month and found that I had ordered one thing from one merchant and have had series of billings ever since, amounting to several hundred dollars—for no additional purchase! I fixed that by making sure that none is going to get the automatic pleasure of using my credit card regularly for anything at all.

I am still leaking out high charges for big ticket items on the house, and the plumbers have not yet come to dig up the yard and find the pump and well to replace them And I have big holes where the big ticket items should be installed—like the dining room the den, and all of the Master Bedroom, and it does to appear that any of the furniture for which the designer furniture was ordered customized to match will be forthcoming here—at least at any time soon, so it is time to pull that plug. If the Contractors are interested in getting the designer magazine photographers in here to do the official photo shoot for the design magazines, and the housewarming party will be coming up soon, I will have to have a few of these obvious holes filled.

I had toured a couple of neighbors through the house who were curious about what had been going on. I also had my lawyer come over here to see what had been transformed, as well as preparing the twin suits against the cheeky taxidermist Charly and the even more obstinate neighbors the Rubins who had the gall and stupidity to leave a smoking gun on my mailbox asking me when I would remove the tree on their lawn, when it came from and fell upon their property, yet the bill was sent to and paid by me—a situation quite to their liking after they commandeered the tree service crew in my absence to remove their tree first and have me billed for it. I have a tolerance for some slippage, but when I am deliberately targeted as the fall guy to be taken advantage of—no way, as to ready recipients of cash access who had bilked me are to find out with court dates this next week.

So, I still figured I might drive up to Michigan, but there has been a close connection on each end, and no real holiday time up there, so the college may just have to wait for the fiftieth anniversary or my demise, whichever comes first. I am healthy, I am unencumbered with a wife or accompanying person who would be bored at the reunion and I can still make it under my own power, as no doubt many of my classmates might not be able to—probably more now than at the coming fiftieth a decade hence. But, I am here now, and I did not get the “ride” I had counted on from my return trip from Bangkok to Grand Rapids—which at least would have been an advance purchase ticket, the way I had worked out the Reno/Tahoe tickets on my way to Taiwan So, I will send a fax or email message to Jim Holtvluwer, who, despite the fact that he is not a Calvin grad or even more than a semester attendant, is on the fortieth reunion committee. I will et them know that I am thinking of them and what it is that is transpiring with me, that despite my best intentions, I would be there but for the press of other activities, and I will email a few enclosures to illustrate what it is that I am up to in the nations capital and around the world. I hope to see them all at the fiftieth when we participate in the actual graduation ceremonies and walk across the platform again as once did in what was then the Civic Auditorium

I have been busy on the planning and paying for the medicines and air tickets for the trip to Dominican Republic and Haiti as you see from the following Jun-B-5. This project has been difficult to pull together since the students who are most likely to go with me are scattered on their summer vacations and are not easily reachable. Since I would have to “eat’ any of the tickets that I had negotiated for in a reduced fare group purchase, I am not eager to “float” the whole $14.000 package and then have students waffle out, as several of the students and all of the other doctors have done. So, I will purchase tomorrow on my credit card only those for which I have a cash confirmation and then all other latecomers can find their own way to get down there at a four fold surcharge on the air fares. I have finally got the MAP packs ordered and ready for delivery, which is for takeoff three weeks from Monday

I will have several sets of guest around during the next weeks, including the Websters from the Eastern Shore, Mark’s brother and mother during the fourth of July (I am hosting all of the residuals of Virginia’s former family except the principal) and Lee Dutton who is coming to DC after the fourth of July. I am then going to host Michael and Judy and the twins on July 12. I had called Donald and suggested that his paternity leave might be a great time to come up to DC and the new Derwood, but clearly, that will never happen. I leave right after the July 13^th visit by Michael and Judy, probably taking them to the airport at BWI, then I leave via DCA for DR and Haiti, and would like to try to make a stopover on return to visit Gainesville to see Matthew David Geelhoed. We will see if I am as successful as the three trips I had made to Gainesville last year, without succeeding in seeing any Geelhoed.

So, I will use these “gap weeks” to work a bit on my ELDP papers, since the hurry up rush on the editing the book “Surgery and healing in the Developing World” has again fallen silent from the publisher after four fallow years and almost every email address for each of the chapter authors has become moot. I have at least come back, almost up to speed on the consistent running and am putting on lots of miles in new Reebok pumps. I had run through the DC Mall as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival is being set up to focus on Haiti this time—and I will see that after this weekend as it begins under the tented exhibits in the nation’s front lawn. So, I will go from the voodoo ceremonies on the lawn of the nation’s showcase, and then go to the real thing in the most destitute region in my experience of many of the world’s worst off places as a perpetual bottom feeder. I am still about four or five photo albums behind, and the sudden incidentals that keep emerging have prevented me from breaking into the new digital era with a real camera to do some serious digital photography—as I realized today when the AmEx bills have been much higher than the paychecks for a few months—without counting the huge checks sent over to the DG Liu contractors for the completion of the house—which now needs some considerable re-plumbing. So, I may be close at home for more than one reason as we get close to the time I should be officially moved in; who knows, at some pint, I may even move out of the basement, off the cot and onto some from of bed somewhere in the upper reaches of the house, even if still not in the Master Bedroom. But, gradualism is the word here, so as not to accommodate luxuries too eagerly and early. Haiti should help in this process!

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