As a junior intern at the Vancouver General Hospital in 1957 my rotation in surgery consisted of assisting the surgeons while operating, and attending the patients on the surgical ward.  Actually, no matter how well you did in medical school, as a junior intern there, you were the lowest of the low. I spent hours at  that time with thread practising tying surgical knots, one handed and two handed knots on the bedpost of our bedroom apartment so I could keep up with the surgeon. They were impatient if we couldn't tie swiftly and neatly snip. My new bride went to sleep as I tied and snipped at the bedpost over and over again.
      I was called in the evening to assist a surgeon who was doing a gall bladder. He was a surgeon who was not on active staff at that hospital so was forced to do his routine surgery at odd hours and possibly less convenient. Anyway I was ready. He was chatty and cheerful throughout the procedure and in those days gall bladder surgery was done,  by most,  through a mighty incision, so there was ample room for the junior intern to display  his skills at tie and snip during the closure. As  I was doing so well as we were closing the incision he complemented me on my assistance and inquired about my aspirations. I told him I was a junior intern and hadn't decided yet. He became abruptly cross, his demeanor changed and he said, "I don't work with only junior interns. I need a senior intern to help me close the rest of the incision"
       We sat by the surgical table for fifteen minutes while the senior intern on call got out of bed and assisted him for the last few minutes of the closure.
       A pointless point was made. The occasional surgeon, surgical time sloughed off to the night by hospital booking and only provided for by a junior intern. A Rodney Dangerfield moment for him. All my practise on the bedpost  and new bride underwhelmed. Renewed lessons on status of who you are, who he was, and twisted reality. An anesthetized patient  no longer a part of things.
         Now myself , having  a practice of medicine for fifty years from that time, a well deserved humility fueling self observation began then. Humble Pie provides all the continuing necessary calories needed for us surgical beings.

The top banana of the Greek Gods, mighty Zeus,  swallowed his wife Metis at the time she was pregnant with Athena. Eventually Metis gave birth to Athena who had to emerge, twice born, through the cervix of Metis and then through the top of Zeus' head.  This isn't a story about alternate food or obstetrics or neurosurgery or even a cranky husband , though it brushes all of those topics. It is about control and the lack of it. For example, Zeus had to deal with Athena's arrival on her timetable rather than one of his choosing/ And she ended up being useful to him rather than stronger than him as he had originally feared.
       Segueing along, let's say I am a fermentation vat and from time to time a bubble arises from below, breaks my surface with a "boing" and produces a spreading ring that lasts a while. The vat doesn't know when the bubble is going to break out and can't stifle it. Like Athena the bubble emerges in its own time ruffles the surface and thereby is part of the fermentation. The quality of the product is left to the taste of the tasters.
          The random harvest of thoughts that arise "de novo" ;  grasped at and scribbled about, without questioning the timing of the birth process, and without stifling yourself, is therapy of a sort, like accepting a quizzical stroll through your head. It may be there is a lot to see there, but it only shows itself to you when it will. Like Zeus I probably have eaten a lot of stuff in my life that is still waiting around to be reborn but I may be too thick skulled to let it out of the top of my head. I long to empty myself,  but wait for the bubble to break the surface:  wait for Athena , Goddess of Wisdom to  appear, since I lack control. It is intriguing to guess what the muse will say next. Constipated notwithstanding, I am content to sit on the stoop and wait for it.

Our family of four was struck by lightning when  anchored just offshore of Pender Island in Browning  harbour.  The pianist and I were in the cabin cruiser with our 13  and 11 year olds and the youngest , the 8 year old was on shore in a tree house with her friend. The weather had been unsettled that day and we four were sleeping aboard that night when a savage storm abruptly struck with both sheet and forked lightning.
     Our family friends rescued the tree house dwellers and watched us through their cottage windows as the storm surged around them and us. They said that with each lightning strike the whole bottom of the bay where we were anchored lit up constantly and they could see all the details on the ocean floor. The four of us, trapped in the cabin together, held hands and  prayed aloud. It's a certain sign of extreme anxiety when you can get a 13 year old and 11 year old to pray aloud for salvation fervently. The roof leak in the cabin drenched us but we didn't notice.
      The boat was anchored on the mud floor with a heavy chain since it was a pretty shallow anchorage. At the height of the storm we were struck with a bolt of lightning and heard an instant clap of loud thunder. The boat shook. We shook! There was an instant and strong smell of what we took for ozone through out the boat. We knew we had been hit and in retrospect I guessed the heavy chain had grounded the boat, thank goodness.A fresh downpour after the strike made us even wetter by the minute. It would have been dangerous to try to make it to the shore in a dingy in that storm. We had to simply wait it out.
       After the storm in the morning we observed the drinking water in the galvanized tank under our floor boards had gone from clear and clean to opaque, the appearance of 2% milk. It was amazing. I never took the opportunity  to ask a physical chemist what that process would have been. Strong electric current passing through oxygen and through fresh water.
        In the aftermath, all of us and our old boat were undamaged. Our friends said as they watched us in the storm they thought we might be "goners" because they saw the  lightning strike the boat. Our 8 year old was safely out of the tree house but was terrified for us! A number of trees on the island were downed in that storm and a cottage destroyed. Though this happened 40 odd years ago, the dangers of the sea and the weather and the power of prayer remain etched in our memory.

The varied and colorful droppings of the ubiquitous Northwestern crow are a useful source of information about the eclectic nature of its dietary habits. For those of us with a scatological bent, the seasonal changes and omnivorous habits of this species, Corvous  caurinus, are worthy of an Outlet Study. They are one of the most adaptable of birds, their success based on diet and opportunism. Our table-toilet for crows are three Western Red Cedar trees over a large painted deck that receives the guano under study and since we live in isolation in the country we have turned misfortune into fortune. The volume and character of the droppings change remarkably through the seasons, both from the trees and the anuses.
        As I clear the tree droppings on the deck and its furniture daily with my gas powered blower I observe small cones, lichen,and moss fragments arising from the crow"s housekeeping ,the small red squirrel scratching and the seasonal needle drop. In the spring small dead cedar branches are ripped from the tree by the crows for nest repair and are often dropped or dismissed for being unsuitable. When I have rid the deck of tree detritus, I then have the opportunity to investigate the associated scat and sticky food leftovers, clam shells, half eaten cherries and red plums that have slipped through their toes after initially pinioned on the branch;  naked cherry and plum stones, flesh successfully eaten in full, scat from the diet of clams and tube worms, small birds, even baby quail, pear and apple fragments, all leave a colorful digested deposit; brown and crunchy, smooth or particulate, black and punctate, white and thin and watery, all with interesting textural variety and compelling graphic intricacies within the scat splat ; Rorschach like in nature: all scat pockmarking the deck with remarkable tenacity.  I felt I was engaging in the old outmoded medical science of Poopology.
     The gas hose sprayer was not enough, A stiff brush and elbow grease and spray was needed. After that the glass top table and chairs were an equal target and equally tenaciously adhered to their prize.  I suppose if you are willing to pay the price for eating in pristine territory  under spreading cedar trees in what is crow territory with orchard and ocean free range, you better never resent blowing brushing and spraying. Besides between the scat and the daily water the trees that are the table-toilet are of equal benefit .

When the pianist says that no one ever taught her how  to cook.  "I just learned by osmosis from always being around my mother.  I learned unconsciously by absorption." I say,  " Tell me more."  Osmosis is simply described as the transfer of water across a semipermeable membrane from a low solute concentrate to a high solute concentrate to establish equilibrium. And so too, the transfer of information supposedly by osmosis from the less dense to the more dense will gradually lead to equal density. ( a metaphor)
      These osmotic transfers of water and information take place with low energy expenditure because they are with the gradient. When I worked as a surgeon over the years I did many things that worked well, and I knew what I knew, but often I didn't know how I knew it. With experience of years much of what we learn is intuitive and gained by osmosis.  This knowledge seeps in through your semipermeable membrane that you exposed to the world. If your membrane is impervious that osmotic transfer does not occur.
       Osmosis is not enough however. High energy expenditure is necessary since osmosis is passive and active learning is always against the gradient. My Aunt Mary always said, "Your little daughter is a bundle of energy." She was righter than she knew since thermodynamics and molecular science tell us we are all molecular energy bundles. And active learning is therefore an application of : Energy = Work+ Heat .  Since the conversion of Energy to Work is never perfect the excess energy is lost or dissipated in heat. This is Entropy. Intelligent study will render energy conversion to work more perfect and will reduce Entropy. Alternatively if you are like me , a lousy wood chopper you will convert that energy to lousy work and get bloody hot in the process. Entropy'
        We can't depend only on passive osmosis and permeability in either our intellectual or physical world. Active learning augments osmotic transfer by the addition  of fostering gradients that require energy transformed into work that seeks to reduce energy loss. Entropy. It should be apparent by results that the pianist didn't get by at cooking with osmosis alone  and applied energy in spades.

Some foolish Magazine writer has said that Kitsilano beach in Olympic City is the third sexiest beach in the world.  Yo!  Not to take away entirely from Kitsilano, I went for a walk on our beach a while back. I hadn't walked the entire mile or so for at least six months but the tide was out and it was a somewhat dull and blowsy day with a little west coast drizzle. My walk was sexy.
    There were three river otters playing and cuddling and watching me about fifty feet from the shore. They stick their heads way out of the water because they are curious. I think two of them were pups.
     There  were over a hundred Canada geese eating eelgrass that was lying horizontal in the tide, waving about, and some of it probably still has remnants of herring eggs still glued on. Protein!
     There was a large  sandbank of geoducks I crossed over and if I touch the siphon gently with my foot  to tease them they give me a big squirt!
     The beach is dotted with small humps and pits where Roland and I have been digging for little neck and butter clams from time to time. The tides have not fully smoothed out the humps yet.
     One lone eagle flew across the harbour and two turkey vultures cruised the shore overhead. The wind was pretty brisk so they had updrafts. The sandbanks have periodic congregations of sand dollars to encounter in the millions but they still are localized.
    The oyster beds seemed diminished to me but there were still large oyster collections on the outcroppings of shale that dot the beach. They are Japanese oysters since we no longer have indigenous oysters here.
      I saw someone had built a large and attractive new house by the beach down the way. I hadn't seen it before. There was no one on the beach during my walk until I arrived back at our beach stairs. A young woman and a dog on a leash walked by, but she hustled and averted her eyes. Training I guess.

In the olden days the crow was considered an omen of death, hence that ancient designation of a bevy of crows that we enjoy on Lotus Island, swooping, frolicking, linguistically diverse, usefully omnivorous, collegial and remarkably intelligent;  hardly ominous for a group once considered as a murder of crows.
   My neighbor Bob had a nice Sweet Cherry. Stella, a self -pollinizer that produced delicious black cherries on occasion when the crows forgot to come there, or were otherwise engaged in our place.
    One spring when the trees were in early bloom and the expectation of fruit was high Bob took action unlike him and shot a couple of crows, murdered them really, and put them in his freezer beside Helen's frozen chickens. When the cherries started to ripen in June Bob hung the crows on his young tree branches thinking the omen for the crows would serve as a warning.  It certainly did and the ruckus was immense. The cherries were left alone to mature into black, soft, sweet, plump and delicious looking fruit.
     The night before Bob's designated picking time some unanticipated visitors came and in the morning the pickers found a family of raccoons who had dined on the softened rotting crows, stripped off most of the cherries for dessert and damaged some branches.
      It has seemed to me at the time when he shot the crows that it was rough but smart action on Bob's part, but I learned otherwise to my blessing. We had two Stella trees in our orchard as well and I then on, accepted humbly my place in the order of natural precedence and I acknowledged that fact is an omen of life , not death. Therefore, murder of crows on my farm has no place for any murder of crows that happen to know where they belong and are willing to share it with us.

When 80 year old Mary Soames* wrote of life with her father Winston Churchill, she , as an i8 year old through the dark days of the beginning of the Second World War in Britain described the visit for several weeks of Harry Hopkins.  Hopkins, an American, son of a harness maker, now a Federal Undersecretary was sent by Roosevelt to assess the situation there and determine what needs America could and should supply.
    Mary remembers the intimate time Hopkins spent with her father and their family through the withering time of the Battle of Britain when the British felt alone and abandoned and her father was so pressed. She recalled the family dinner given for Hopkins on his departure. He stood and spoke to them all that evening and he said, in passing,  "I suppose you wonder what I will say to President Roosevelt when I return. This is what I can and will advise them for our countries. ----- Where you will go, we will go, and where you lodge we will lodge and your people will be our people."
       Hopkins, son of a harness maker found nothing more expressive of the connection  with Britain, America, and the family of Mary Soames than he found from the Book of Ruth. But it says more-----" your people will be my people and your God, my God and where you die I will die also." Harry Hopkins was as good as his words.

* From A Daughter's Tale; The Memoirs of Winston Churchill.  Mary Soames

The indigenous berries produced on the prairies where cultivated fruit was rare, provided a bonanza in the fall; a gift from Mother Nature for the taking.  I'm not talking about the later cultivars developed at the universities or experimental farms, but the original shrubs we harvested berries from in the olden days.
     Low bush blueberries (Vaccinium augustifolium) in the Hudson Bay Junction area where we lived on the edge of the Canadian Shield.  Your fingers were blue from the bloom on the berries and your back sore from stooping. Your ears were alert for sounds of bears grunting and eating and your legs ready to run. And High Bush Cranberries ( Viburnam trilobum)  from the same area.  Not related at all botanically or horticulturely to the common cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) , these  little red berries on a tall bush made a tart and piquant jelly. The Pincherry  (Prunus pensylvanica) also was a favorite of the jelly maker. A tart and delicious jelly was created, particularly good for game and meat.
        My favorite as a child was the Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana). The flavour from this berry, in the jelly is unique. A slice of homemade bread slathered with butter and chokecherry jelly was ambrosia.
        Because it took a long time to pick most of these small and thinly distributed shrubby lttle fruits the preserves were special, a treasure trove and treated with care.
       The Saskatoon berry (Amalenchier alnafolia), on the other hand was wide spread throughout the prairies.The  berries made very nice pies  and were easy to pick. Saskatoons became the prairie icon of sorts but less for flavour and more for its ubiquity.
        The cultivars that have arisen as a result of plant selection have undoubtedly improved the production of these little trees but they will never supplant the fruit flavours one remembers from one's youthful taste buds.

In 1979,while working in the orchard pruning apple trees and sitting at the base of a tree taking a breather, I saw Gramps, the pianist's father, walking up the road beside the orchard to my right. He walked slowly and haltingly because he was breathless from an advanced lung cancer that was no longer amenable to treatment, but he was still in good spirits and mining all he could from the seams of his remaining life.
     With the alteration of his gait and slowing of his steps we could have orchestrated with some form of  music, the cadence of this piece. He had emerged from the kitchen door on the right of the cottage, closed it quietly, and seemingly had a location in mind. As I watched and thought about him and his life ebbing away after so many years I still saw spirit and desire. I knew he was going up the road for a smoke.
       There was a flash of movement on the path on the left side of the cottage I suddenly saw. The sliding door had silently opened and closed and my fourteen year old daughter Ruth had emerged, ostensibly unnoticed,and quietly walked up the pathway to the left of the orchard, clearly on her way to have a forbidden smoke. She had spirit and desire and was going to try everything, childhood ebbing away.
          As they proceeded apace, unknown to one another, and known to me in silence, I saw this as a drama, a point and counterpoint, interdependent harmonically yet independent in rhythm and contour. Three players engaged in the small rhythm of life.