Clear cutting

The report from the pathology lab says that the surgery was successful, that they got all of the cancer, in that one area. I still have a follow-up appointment with the dermatologist to
find out if there are other suspicious areas on me.

Thanks for all the prayers and cheers and comforting words. As Luis Tiant said of the Boston fans, "You make do better than I can do."

Now on to the important stuff. I replaced our wireless router at home last night. We've had cable Internet access for several years. The speeds of our connection, however, has been dropping significantly, down to and below dial-up speed. The culprit was the router. When I installed the new router, we got our Internet back again. It's a bit surprising that the router failed first; the cable modem is older by a couple of years.

Anyway, we're back on the air so that we can hear about:

• Well, Angus, what did you learn in school today?
• Give this man a Massachusetts driver's license.
• It's not only a pen, it's a radio. It's not only a pen and a radio, it's a shredder.

One of the problems with the electronic delivery of music (iPods, satellite radio, Internet radio, and such) is the lack of information about the music. Liner notes on albums and even CD jackets provided important stuff like the song's author. If you are fortunate, you'd also find out who played on the sessions. Occasionally, some radio stations will give that kind of background detail, but it's becoming increasingly rare and increasingly hard to locate.

And, then, Apple seems to be poised to address this problem, at least partially. Future versions of the iPod will have text-to-speech capability to let the iPod tell you who is playing what. It won't yet tell me who was playing bass on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited sessions, but it's a start. (There were two bassists - Russ Savakus and Harvey Brooks.)

The era of crank windows is coming to an end, with just a few vehicles offering them as a cheap option. Two quick stories on that:

• A member of our extended family would have every one in the car open their windows (even in Canadian winters) when they driving over a bridge while in a car with power windows. She was afraid that the windows wouldn't open underwater.
• I knew a guy who was really excited when he bought his first car with power windows. He could then throw his beer bottles out the passenger side and not have to worry about on-coming traffic so much. It worked great, except for the time that he thought the window was down and it wasn't.
  

Crazy diamond goes dark

My Way News: "Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett dies"

On health and some about nature

After the 1938 hurricane, there was plenty of work for people willing and able to clear away the fallen trees. My father and another guy worked on the property of the old state hospital in East Gardner. In those days, many of the people who were committed to the hospital didn't come out vertically. It was a grim place, but it was some place. When the hospital closed in the 70s, many people were sent to the streets. We had people living in the Salvation Army bin in front of the Friendly's where I worked. One guy would come into the restaurant and drink Fribble® glasses of water, a sign of unchecked diabetes. Folks hung around for a month or so and then just went away.

At the hospital, my father met up with a patient named Percy. Percy dragged a heavy chain all of the time. He seemed all right, able to carry on normal conversations. After several times meeting up with Percy, my father's friend finally asked, "How come you keep dragging that chain around behind you?"

"You ever try pushing one of these things?"

Many of us will remember Lyndon Johnson showing off his gall bladder scar after his 1966 operation. I think that we're generally agreed that the world neither wants nor needs to see my scar, which, truth be told, is fading to just a scratch. I'm expecting to get the pathology lab results in the next day or two. Friday I have an x-ray scheduled to check on my pneumonia (cough, cough) and then an appointment with the dermatologist who will be looking anything else that might be suspicious.

Yesterday's Boston Globe carried an article that brought some interesting, but not altogether helpful news about skin cancer. For squamous cell cancer, there's no doubt that sun exposure is the primary cause and sunblock is the primary preventative. For basal cell cancer or melanoma, the evidence is less clear. Sun exposure, particularly sunburns, are a factor, but so are family history, age, sex, and skin type.

While the scientists figure out what's really at work here, I will take the cautious route. My days lounging around the beach in a Speedo® are done.

In conversations with family and friends, I've been trying to figure out how this cancer diagnosis has changed things. I don't have a clear answer and probably won't for a while. In the meantime, life is full and good, so I have plenty of ways to focus my energy. I often recall what an old friend said to me many years ago. "You'll reach a place where you look forward to the hard times for what they're going to teach you."

We don't see many deer at the camp. My guess is that the woods are too thick with undergrowth to let them move about easily. A couple of times, we've seen one swimming across the cove. Recently, we saw fresh hoof prints in the wet sand near the boat house. Our neighbors reported seeing a bull moose on the dirt road leading to their house.