First Flower for the Year2-26-26

Jan noticed our first flowers for the year, two beautiful yellow crocuses. The crocus is in the iris family and displays  the general characteristics of the family Iridaceae, which include basal cauline (arising from the aerial stem) leaves that sheath the stem base, hermaphrodite flowers that are showy, the perianth petaloid with two whorls of three tepals each and septal nectaries. The flowers have three stamens and a gynoecium of three united carpels and an inferior ovary, three locules and axile placentation with fruit that is a loculicidal capsule. Other than that it is a relatively simple flower.

It closes up at night.

There was an apple tree in the yard —
this would have been
forty years ago — behind,
only meadows. Drifts
of crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor's yard.
How many times, really, did the tree
flower on my birthday,
the exact day, not
before, not after? Substitution
of the immutable
for the shifting, the evolving.
Substitution of the image
for relentless earth. What
do I know of this place,
the role of the tree for decades
taken by a bonsai, voices
rising from the tennis courts —
Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory. 

— Louise Gluck

Don's Blog Will We Be all Right? 2-19-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from February 1992. It is the last editorial that
I wrote as Editor. The problems have not changed. AI will help in some areas and in other areas
not so much. I suggest that the answer will be the same.
I'm on a new computer and have not figured out yet how to enlarge the print. Suggestions?

Don's Blog Advanced Directives: Beginning the Process 2-12-26

Here is my Missouri Medicine editorial from January of 1992. This is an area where I say we

have made some progress. Although like finances it is still an uncomfortable discussion in families

it is more readily discussed than 30 years ago.

Along these lines here is another Borges poem from Katy.

And yet, and yet… 

Denying temporal succession, 

denying the self, 

denying the astronomical universe, 

are apparent desperations and secret consolations. 

Our destiny … is not frightful by being unreal; 

it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. 

Time is the substance I am made of. 

Time is a river which sweeps me along, 

but I am the river; 

it is a tiger which destroys me, 

but I am the tiger; 

it is a fire which consumes me, 

but I am the fire. 

The world, unfortunately, is real; 

I, unfortunately, am Borges.

Jorge Louis Borges

Don's Blog The Quality of Care 2-5-25

Here is my Missouri Medicine editorial from December 1991, 35 years ago. Looking at the quality of care is 

even more important now with the impending takeover of medical care by AI robots. It cannot be stopped.

Don's Blog "The Quandary of Technology" 1-28-26

On this cold winter's day here is my editorial in Missouri Medicine from November of 1991. It is less

timeless than some of my editorials but the issue of addressing new technology remains. Where will AI fit in?

Don's Blog Snowfall

In these days of storm and turmoil take 4 minutes to relax. The mirror neurons in your brain will
match what you are hearing and you will experience peace.

Don's Blog "Waking Up" 1-21-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from October 1991, 35 years ago. This is best read on a computer.

Editors Note. When I was 9 years old in La Grange, Illinois I  would attend the Sunday Evening Club 

in the winter months with my family, two older brothers and my parents. The programs were presented in my high school auditorium just across the the railroad tracks from our home.One of the programs was breathtaking an unforgettable. Two canoeists described their white water canoe adventure on a the Canadian arctic river which to me was permanently captivating. They showed slides and amazing movies. I can see one of the movies even now in my head. I wanted to do that. 

Somehow that dream was replaced by my life as a student, competitive tennis player, amateur backpacker and mountaineer and family man and head and neck surgeon. During the Viet Nam War era I was stationed in Anchorage Alaska with my wife and two young sons. I fell in love with the far north. At age 13 my oldest son went to scout camp in Ely Minnesota where he learned to canoe. He never really ever came home. After college he canoed the length of the Mississippi river from Lake Itaska to the gulf. Save for a few Covid years he has taken or led canoe expeditions on white water rivers in the Canadian arctic every summer. 

It was at that point that he invited me my the first arctic canoe expedition. I had never really forgotten the Sunday Evening program and that yearning to do that adventure myself. The Caribou River expedition described above was the first of nine expeditions to the far north. Arctic fever can be serious. Eight of my trips were paddling on arctic rivers and  saw me traveling downriver going north through 'The Land' and finishing on the arctic ocean. The last trip was a voyage on a small cruise ship with other adventurous elders that started in Greenland, went  across the North West Passage and ended in Nome Alaska. I got to see 'The Land'  from the ocean side and got to visit some of the sites where my canoe trips had ended. What privilege to fulfill a dream.

Don's Blog The Wall 1-14-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from November 1992. In the  rereading I am still there.

Don's Blog "Another Poem of Gifts" 1-8-26

Here is another poem by  Jorge Luis Borges from my friend Katy. What else do you have to do but read it?

Another Poem of Gifts  Frances Haslam was Borges's English grandmother.

Don's Blog 'Being In Country' 1-1-26

Happy New Year. I look forward to each new year with great enthusiasm. There is nothing I do to create this energy. 

It is a way of being that I inherited from my mother for which I am more than grateful.

For the last several years or more during the winter when nature is resting I have been sharing articles that I wrote

as Editor of Missouri Medicine. My editorials were not about reacting to the intrusion of the government and other third parties between doctors and their patients and the resultant chaos. The articles addressed what it was to be a physician in these times including the joy of caring for patients but also how it is to BE a physician at the human level where life is authentically lived. Here is my editorial from June of 1991, the 58th such article I have shared.

Not much has changed in the ensuing 35 years except that being retired allows me to be on the trail every day

as I answer the 'ancient' call.