Rob Mahan Books

Category: lost traditions

  • Country Doctors – A Fading Memory

    Country Doctors – A Fading Memory

    At eighty-seven, Dr. Russell Dohner still sees patients who come by his office off the town square in Rushville, Illinois, just like he has done for the past sixty years. But time marches on, and Dr. Dohner has been forced to more than double his fee for a first-come-first-served office visit. On their way out, each patient now pays Edith Moore, the eighty-five-year-old secretary, a five dollar fee.

    Dr. Dohner doesn’t accept medical insurance–he says it’s not worth the bother. “I always just wanted to be a doctor to help people with their medical problems and that’s all it’s for. It was never intended to make a lot of money.” You can read more of Dr. Dohner’s story here, in the LaCross Tribune.

    From the late 1950s, I grew up in a small, rural town in northeast Ohio. There was a little white house across the street from us, where Dr. List had his office. With wisps of gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a white coat, Doc List stitched me up when I fell partway through a glass storm door, prescribed medicine whenever I got sick, and he even fitted me with my first pair of glasses. My parents always paid him in cash. Back then, Doc List either didn’t take medical insurance, or we didn’t have that kind of insurance. I’m not sure which was the case, but whenever we needed medical care, we just walked across the street.

    Fortunately for me, Doc List’s son followed in his father’s footsteps. When I was about thirteen, and too sick to even walk across the street, the young Dr. List made the last house call I can remember. He ended up sending me straight to the hospital with a 105 degree temperature, and a bad case of viral pneumonia.

    In the story, An Irish Miracle, Doc McGowan makes a house call to look after Alastar Connolly, after he took a nasty fall and split his head open. Dr. Dohner, both Dr. Lists, and Doc McGowan are caring, dedicated country doctors. The only difference is that Doc McGowan was a large animal veterinarian, affectionately, a horse doctor. Since his patients usually weighed well over 1000 pounds, it wasn’t really his fault that he might have been a little heavy-handed with the local anesthetics he administered to Alastar.

    Would you trust an old country doctor, like the ones in this story, with your medical care today? Their training and methods might have been from a bygone era, but they each cared deeply for their patients, many of whom were also friends and neighbors. Going to a doctor’s office these days seems to begin with “Has your insurance changed?” instead of “It’s nice to see you, how are you feeling?”, and end with a string of cryptic billing statements and frustrating telephone calls that can stretch out for months afterward.

    Something in between might be nice.

    All the best,
    Rob

  • A Skyline Drive Memory

    A Skyline Drive Memory

    Pig Farm from the Skyline Drive

    A dear fellow blogger, Cameron of growing grace farm, wrote about a recent drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway with her daughter. Her post, What Tunnels Can Teach Us About Awareness, is a lovely metaphor about remembering to travel through life with a heightened sense of the world around us … and it sparked a childhood memory I’d like to share.

    Cameron’s mention of the Blue Ridge Parkway brought back a childhood memory of my dad. A 1960s family vacation found us on the Skyline Drive, winding along the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, above the Shenandoah River, and through some of the most beautiful countryside in America. At one scenic overlook, Pop pointed out a pig farm down in the distant valley. The white farmhouse had a lazy curl of smoke rising from its chimney. In the sunshine and crisp, late summer air, a slight breeze brought a hint of woodsmoke and further evidence of the pigs far below up to our noses. It was a good, earthy smell. It told us of the family farm, teeming with life below.

    The Skyline Drive is over a hundred twisty miles long, and the speed limit back in 1966 was something like thirty-five miles an hour. But with so many sights to see along the way, Pop drove it slowly, with frequent stops for “Kodak moments”. It was late evening by the time we reached the northern end of the route in Front Royal, Virginia. We hadn’t planned ahead very well, with only a bag of butterscotch candy in the car, so we were all very hungry by the time we found a restaurant. I’d never seen grilled pineapple on ham before, but the smoke from the charring steaks didn’t sit well with my over-hungry, eight-year-old stomach, and I couldn’t eat much.

    The smokey restaurant didn’t bother Pop in the least, however, and that night he had what he said was one of the best meals he could remember. He had a huge Black Angus steak, but he talked about his baked potato, rubbed with rock salt, for the rest of the trip. When we got home, he looked forward to duplicating that delicious potato for himself.

    It’s odd how certain things stick in an eight-year-old’s memory for the rest of his life. My guess is that Cameron’s daughter will forever remember the drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway with her mom, and how all the dark tunnels through those thick, old mountains made her feel on that late summer day, way back in 2012.

    All the best,
    Rob

  • Once in a Blue Moon

    Once in a Blue Moon

    There was a full moon on August 1, 2012, and today, August 31, marks the second full moon of the month. Using the commonly accepted calendar definition of a Blue Moon, tonight’s moon will be the last Blue Moon for nearly three years, as the next one won’t happen until 2015. But if you side with the Farmers’ Almanac definition of a Blue Moon, the next one won’t happen until 2016.

    No matter which definition you ascribe to, Blue Moons happen because the lunar month, which is always about 29-1/2 days, don’t exactly match up with our Gregorian calendar months, which vary from 29 to 31 days. (I still have to count knuckles.) Confused? Here’s a brief explanation.

    In the English language, the earliest recorded uses of the term “blue moon” had religious connotations, but the 19th and early 20th century history of the term is a bit closer at hand.

    Farmers’ Almanac Blue Moon

    The four seasons–spring, summer, fall, and winter–divide the year into quarters, and each season usually has three full moons. Ancient cultures around the world have always named each of the full moons. Farmers’ lives are dictated by the passing of each successive season, and in North America, the farmers have names for every season’s full moons, too.

    • Spring starts on the Vernal Equinox
      • Early Spring, or Egg Moon
      • Mid Spring, or Milk Moon
      • Late Spring, or Flower Moon
    • Summer starts on the Summer Solstice
      • Early Summer, or Hay Moon
      • Mid Summer, or Grain Moon
      • Late Summer, or Fruit Moon
    • Fall starts on the Autumnal Equinox
      • Early Fall, or Harvest Moon
      • Mid Fall, or Hunter’s Moon
      • Late Fall, or Oak Moon
    • Winter starts on the Winter Solstice
      • Early Winter, or Old Moon
      • Mid Winter, or Wolf Moon
      • Late Winter, or Lenten Moon

    But very little in a farmer’s life is ever easy. Because of the difference in length of the almost uniform lunar month and the varying lengths of our Gregorian calendar months, a fourth full moon creeps into one of the seasons, every once in a . . . while. These absurd, extra full moons threatened to disrupt the farmers’ meaningful “early-mid-late” naming convention, but by necessity, farmers are very resourceful folks. So any time a season had four full moons, the THIRD one was called a Blue Moon, so the last full moon of that season could continue to be called the Late Moon. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Maine Farmers’ Almanac always listed blue moon dates for farmers.

    Calendar Blue Moon

    Don’t worry, this is a much shorter explanation.

    In 1946, in an article he wrote for Sky and Telescope magazine, James Pruett misinterpreted the 1937 Maine Farmers’ Almanac, which described years with blue moons as having “… eleven months with one full moon each and one with two.” Pruett wrote that he interpreted this to mean the second full moon in any given month was a Blue Moon. This “non-traditional” definition became widely adopted when it was broadcast on a popular radio program in 1980. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, either.

    By the way, a Blue Moon isn’t really blue. Today, the phrase “Once in a Blue Moon” is taken to relate to absurdities, impossibilities, and events that only occur on rare occasions.

    Full Moon

    August 25, 2012 marked the passing of Neil Armstrong, a truly great American and a boyhood hero of mine. Neil’s family issued a statement shortly after his death:

    “For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong … and give him a wink.”

    The Family of Neil Armstrong

    I will never be able to look up at the moon again–whether it be an Egg Moon, a Harvest Moon, a Lenten Moon, or a Blue Moon like tonight’s–and not give Neil a thought, a thanks, and a wink.