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Between you and me

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So much for well made plans. It was to be a milestone high school reunion this past weekend, a classmate was coming from Denver to stay with me, and we would attend the reunion together. I have known her since seventh grade, and for whatever reasons apparent only to middle school kids, we had nicknamed each other then “Salmon” and “Clambroth.” We giggled about that over our cellphones, temporarily traveling back in time 60 years, as we arranged the logistics for the coming event.

She had been one of the shortest girls in the class and I was one of the taller, so our classmates inevitably referred to us as “Mutt & Jeff” as we walked the halls. Would anyone besides us remember that? More than 50 women out of the original 225 in our all-girls school were coming into New York City or already there, and it promised to be a grand gathering.

My friend was already flying east Thursday morning when I climbed out of the shower and fell on my back in the bathroom. The pain was sharp and immediate. In an instant the much-anticipated weekend evaporated before my eyes. Never mind the weekend. I was going to be lucky if the bones on the left side of my body — my shoulder, elbow, forearm, ribs and hip — weren’t broken. None of the surfaces in the bathroom are forgiving, and I had cracked against the wall of the tub. The vision of walking into reunion was replaced by my coming home from the hospital in a body cast.

I realized I was screaming as I lay on the ceramic floor and had been for a number of seconds to no avail. There was no one else home. I screamed some more, just because I could, then began the miles-long crawl to my bedroom. For some unaccountable reason, I thought I would feel much better if I could get into my bed. Silly me, I couldn’t even stand. Nor could I stop shaking. I was able to pull the phone off the table, however, and I called a dear friend who fortunately was home and had rescued me before. Together we drove to the hospital.

That was only a 10-minute trip, but I felt every pebble and bump in the road. The hospital personnel were wonderful. They wheeled me into the emergency room, and after some inevitable paperwork but not much of a wait, I was helped onto a bed between two curtains and my date of birth corroborated several times with the paper bracelets on my wrist. An empathetic physician’s assistant greeted me and asked what had happened. Then came the X-rays.

Of course they were going to X-ray the places that hurt, and I tried not to scream during the many rearrangements of my body. The process seemed to go on forever although I had no idea of time, and then it was over. I joined my angelic friend between the two curtains and squirmed in bed, searching for a pain-free
position as we waited for the results.

The PA came with good news and bad news. My shoulder, elbow, arm and hip were badly bruised but not broken. In fact they were already turning colors of the rainbow amid the swelling. But my back, the area of greatest pain, had what seemed like a new compression fracture. I had endured that trauma before, and the PA couldn’t be sure it was a new or old injury. And there wasn’t much the PA could do except recommend a painkiller, preferably Tylenol, and send me home.

Imagine the reaction of my Denver friend when she completed the 2,000 mile trip to my house, only to find me laid out in my living room and still shaking. She did go the different events of reunion weekend, and through her descriptions and the texts and emails from those gathered, I was able vicariously to enjoy hearing what they talked about. I think before the next milestone reunion, I won’t shower.

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According to what I recently read, over half of the high schools in the United States are doing away with recognition of the highest achieving students. They are no longer naming valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation. I find that shocking.

No, I was neither valedictorian nor salutatorian at my high school graduation, so that is not the cause of my
disappointment at this latest piece of participation trophy news. No one is hurt if there is no “best.” Everyone feels good about himself or herself, and there certainly isn’t any unhealthy competition, right? Everyone gets the same diploma. Everyone is equal.

How idiotic! Everyone is not equal just because everyone showed up. Some put more effort into the learning process than others. Perhaps some were not as gifted as others but had a greater drive to learn and to excel. Shouldn’t those top students be rewarded with the recognition they deserve? Shouldn’t they be regarded as role models? They will often go on to be the leaders of our country at the end of the day.

Class ranking is also being abandoned. This is just another example of dumbing down America. In our vast and rich continent, our most valuable resources are the education and knowledge, along with the drive and motivation of our population. When we declare that all men (insert “persons”) are created equal, we mean we have equal rights to excel and should be given every opportunity and encouragement to do so.

I did graduate from a highly competitive high school. I had to pass a test to get in, and I had to pass innumerable tests over the years to stay in. We all moaned about how competitive the school was. Our final grades were posted on the main hallway walls at the end of each semester, along with our rank in our class. “So terrible,” we said, “so unhealthy.” But you know what? I worked harder, studied longer, learned more, because I wanted to see my name higher up on those lists.

Englishman Roger Bannister didn’t break the 4-minute mile alone in 1954 at an Oxford University track. He did it because there were two other runners in the race, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, who challenged him for the lead. The competition spurred Bannister to give his best and then some. And when he did break the long-standing barrier, the magic 4-minute figure, he thanked his pacemakers, Chataway and Brasher.

Some disagree that winning a prize or trophy of some sort is what we should be encouraging. They say instead we should inspire an internal desire for learning and self-betterment. But if both work together, an external reward system and an internal drive, we have the best combination for success. Take away the external and the fizz goes out of the drink.

We can teach students how to make competition work for them, rather than tell students that competition is bad.  Competitors make worthy colleagues. Sometimes they make best friends.

Part of what we supposedly teach in schools is preparation for what we call “the real world.” Now everything about our world is competitive: What school we get into, which college we attend, what job we will be able to beat out the competition for, which of us will get promoted, get pay raises, even who we will marry. Heck, will the hometown team win the ballgame tonight?

Now some people refuse to play the competitive game, and that’s all right too. They get jobs that pay them enough to get by, they don’t aspire to the conspicuous consumption of much of our society, and they live solid lives with perhaps relatively less stress. Not everyone wants to be a record-breaking athlete. Just getting by is enough. They have the right to the pursuit of happiness according to their own wishes. But sooner or later they have to compete for something — or someone. It is the way of the world, and it is a skill that can be learned without damaging our students. The consolation to not being the best is that everyone is special in some way, not that everyone is equal because they all showed up.

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Here are some chuckles from the internet. Hope you enjoy them.

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, “I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything.”

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walked into a bra.

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says, “A beer, please — and one for the road.”

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”

7. “Doc, I can’t stop singing ‘Green, Green Grass of Home.’” “That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome.” “Is it
common?” “Well, it’s not unusual.”

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, “I was artificially inseminated this morning.” “I don’t believe you,” says Dolly. “It’s true, no bull,” exclaims Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10. Déjà moo: The feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.

11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn’t find any.

12. A man woke up in the hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs.” The doctor replied, “I know, I amputated your arms.”

13. I went to a seafood disco last week … and pulled a mussel.

14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, “Dam!”

16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.

17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, and asked them to disperse. “But why?” they asked, as they moved off. “Because I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer,” he explained to them.

18. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt, and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins. If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”

19. A dwarf, who was a mystic, escaped from jail. The call went out that there was a small medium at large.

20. And finally, there was the person who sent 20 different puns to his friends with the hope that at least 10 of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in 10 did.

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Lucky me, our Mother’s Day celebration this year included a trip into New York City to see “My Fair Lady.” Now this show, which I first saw on Broadway in 1956 just after it was launched, was a trip down memory lane for me. It was also a bellwether for how much our culture has changed. At the time of its premiere 62 years ago, the play was the “Hamilton” of its time, creating the adulation and frenzied response for tickets that we are familiar with today.

“My Fair Lady” was a different sort of musical for its many-layered themes and clever, witty lyrics. It stood apart from the golden era of Rodgers and Hammerstein marvels like “South Pacific” and “Oklahoma!” that had preceded it. This wasn’t in the mold of a romantic musical but rather one about personal transformation and English class rigidity.

The play, by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, had as its inspiration from the ancient world, Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” and more recently George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion.” This is the story of a sculptor, talented but alone, who carves a beautiful woman out of stone and then falls in love with her. He prays to Venus to bring her to life, and the goddess of love hears him. The statue becomes flesh and blood beneath his hands, and what comes next is the essence of the story.

In the Lerner and Loewe iteration, two high society phoneticians named Henry Higgins and retired army Col. Hugh Pickering make a bet over whether the way English people speak — their accents — lock them into their class and station for their entire lives. Higgins feels that if he can teach a low-born pupil to speak the King’s English, he can change that person’s life. Now we are in the time of Edwardian England, and the person who overhears the conversation and offers herself up for self-improvement is Eliza Doolittle. A Cockney flower girl in Piccadilly Circus, she is both terrified of what is to come and palpably ambitious, insisting that while she is a “good girl,” not looking for anything carnal, she desperately wants to learn.

So Higgins takes her into his elegant home and professorial life and works intensely with her in his laboratory for months while Pickering looks on and offers help wherever he is needed — after being assured by Higgins that there will not be any hanky-panky involved. Higgins vehemently asserts to Pickering that he is not interested in emotional relationships. The experiment between the high-born cerebral bachelor and the “guttersnipe” pupil thus begins. Will Higgins succeed and win the bet?

We know Eliza will succeed, even as we watch her anguished attempts to learn what Higgins is working so hard to teach. There are testing moments for her progress and teaching opportunities that include a riotously funny visit on opening day to Ascot Racecourse. Fun is poked unmercifully at the pretensions of the upper classes.

Finally, the big test arrives, a ball where Eliza is going to be introduced to and judged by those swells
assembled. She, of course, pulls it off and is thought to be of Hungarian royal blood. But is she congratulated? Well, you have to go see the play. I’m not about to spoil the ending for those unfamiliar with the plot.

But her triumph is not the point. Her future is. What is to become of this person who has transcended her class, with its freedoms, grime and penury notwithstanding, and is now locked into the bourgeois rules for women in an ossified society? Is she to become Higgins’ mistress? And what about him? She has now awakened emotions in him that he has long walled off from his daily life. Will he ask her to marry him? He, too, has been transformed.

The answer is that 1956 was quite different to 2018. Can you guess?

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From the time I was a young girl, I wanted to be a mother. The urge to hold and to love a baby, my baby, was a conscious one. I also had professional ambitions, so in those days, before women expected to be able to do it all, there was a bit of a conflict in my head. Curiously, while I don’t remember telling anyone about my maternal urges, I did mention it on my first date to the man I eventually married. He told me that he too looked forward to having children, so the rest is history.

When I did have my first child, I was quietly terrified. I was the caboose child in my parents’ families, meaning that my parents were older, and everyone in my generation was already born before I came on the scene. There were no babies for me to practice on, I had never given a baby a bottle nor changed a diaper, and I was afraid I was inadvertently going to do some terrible harm to a helpless infant. It wasn’t until the baby’s one-month checkup, when the pediatrician exalted about how his development — size and weight — were “off the charts,” that I began to relax and believe the baby would survive my ignorance.

After that the parenting urge was so fulfilling that we did it twice more in record time. Judging from my friends’ tales of their children, we had it easy with three boys. They were exceedingly energetic but never moody, didn’t hold a grudge for more than three minutes, weren’t particular about what clothes they wore and could be entertained with a generous supply of miniature trucks on rainy, “indoor” days or any ball game on “outside” days. Baseball on our dead end street was their favorite, and I became a pretty good pitcher, if I do say so myself.

They didn’t much like it when I started the first newspaper and was away from the house a great deal. They were all in elementary school by that point and they came to accept the new arrangement, even were infrequently pleased with my new occupation. And since my office was only some five minutes from the house and three minutes from their school, I felt I could get to them quickly if they needed me. I was able to look in on them in the course of each day. In fact, I had more trouble convincing my mother than my
children that it was acceptable to work both inside and outside the home. I just could never understand how all three unfailingly picked friends who lived on the farthest ends of the school district and had to be driven back and forth. That and the constant car pooling for games and music lessons made me grateful that I had learned to drive — not a typical skill among my urban classmates when I was growing up.

I weathered their teenage years as best I could, sometimes marveling that only my children could make me scream (and my mother). At the same time, my husband and I vicariously enjoyed the children’s various successes: academic, musical and athletic. They were blossoming into young adults and we were regularly irritated by them and immensely proud of them.

As the children reached their later teenage years, the family dynamic shifted. My husband was terminally ill, and the children were forced to deal with death. My mother and my father had both passed on by then, and the boys had been deeply touched by their loss, but the death of a parent at a far younger age than expected for either their father or themselves struck me as a cruel trick. Somehow we had not lived up to our part of the parenting contract.

I guess that was when my children started to become my friends. It probably would have happened around that age anyway, but we became allies in the face of adversity. And then life’s wonderful joys unfurled. … They graduated, got jobs, found their loved ones and eventually made me a grandmother. That’s a club one can’t apply to oneself, but having arrived there, I can endlessly sing its praises.

Bottom line: How ultimately satisfying it is for me to be a mom.

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For those of us who remember the savage Korean War (1950-53) and the various attempts at a peace treaty over the years, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un’s pirouette from warmonger to statesman is astonishing. All of us remember the test missiles that were fired from North Korea, some over Japan, into the sea as recently as last year.

We also remember the bellicose rhetoric about being able to reach the continental United States from North Korea with those missiles.

What happened?

First there was President Donald Trump’s equally bellicose rhetoric, some of it personally aimed at North Korea’s leader, referred to as “Little Rocket Man.” Trump was severely criticized at the time for sounding like a schoolyard bully rather than a diplomatic leader. The world watched in horror, wondering if we were on the edge of nuclear war. All the while North Korea’s ongoing tests were apparently successful. Probably the most concerned was South Korea’s new leader, Moon Jae-in.

Next came the Winter Olympics serendipitously and President Moon’s invitation to the North Koreans to participate under one flag. This too was unprecedented. Kim accepted and perhaps more tellingly sent his sister as his representative. She seems to be one family member he trusts. We all witnessed the diplomatic success at the Olympics.

In retrospect, something seems to have changed after that. Was it a new perspective for the two Koreas as a result of the games? Or did it have some connection to the subsequent visit Kim made to China in the middle of one night? I believe that was Kim’s first trip out of his country, and of course it is significant that he chose to visit Premier Xi Jinping. Was Kim invited or did he request the meeting? What advice was he given by the powerful Chinese leader, who seems to have established a rapport with Trump? What will the Chinese, with their long-term view, want to happen now?

At this point, Kim has been counseled, Moon has been galvanized and the tenor of the Korean debate begins to shift. Kim invites Trump to meet with him, and over the objections of our diplomats, Trump immediately accepts. There is no doubt that Trump is partially responsible for this shift.

The two Korean leaders then enter into a diplomatic choreography with lots of positive dialogue that plays well for the people of both Koreas, and the rest of the world for that matter, who want peace. In war, it is humankind that suffers terribly, and the people can only hope and pray for their leaders to keep the peace.

So what does North Korea want, as far as we can tell? Certainly Kim wants to stay in power as the No. 1 priority. So far his most visible achievement is his development of nuclear missiles. He also professes to want an improved economy. In fact, he was surprisingly forthright about the woeful condition of his roads and infrastructure in talking with Moon. When North Koreans went to the Olympics, they were apparently impressed by the South’s trains — and probably everything else that attests to a good economy.

The South wants to eliminate the threat of nuclear war and confrontation. And perhaps it wishes to invest in the economic recovery of the North, where there will be money to be made. The Chinese would like to see the United States leave the Korean Peninsula. I would be keenly interested in what else China expert Henry Kissinger thinks the Chinese want. Undoubtedly the South would also like to see us go if peace is
somehow assured. There are some 30,000 American troops still stationed in South Korea.

And what would we like? We would first like the removal of nuclear weapons from North Korea and finally a formal peace treaty ending the 65-year conflict.

Those goals have seemed irreconcilable until now but perhaps what we will get is a prolonged peace.

Where is the Invisible Hand of China in the Current Korean Dance?

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It actually makes me cringe when I hear discussions questioning whether a college education is worth the expense. Yes, college loans carried by students after they graduate are astronomical and unprecedented. The average student loan debt for the Class of 2016, for example, is $37,172, up 6 percent from the preceding year. Americans owe, in total, more than $1.48 trillion in student loans spread out over 44 million borrowers, more than the $620 billion owed on credit cards, according to figures obtained from the Student Loan Hero website. Average monthly student loan repayment after graduation, for borrowers 20 to 30 years of age, is $351.

Those are, of course, mammoth numbers that are hard to conceive. But how about this for comparison: Mortgage debt is $8.8 trillion. You can move out of a house, but you only have one head. And what you fill that head with can determine the quality of the rest of your life. Your house may contain your financial equity, but your knowledge base and critical thinking make up your life’s equity.

I know the stories about the college dropouts who become billionaires. Good for them, they don’t have to worry about money. But that is part of the point I am trying to make. Education is not only about money, about the job you will hold or the amount of toys you will own by the time you die. Education is partially about income, as statistics prove. College grads earn more in the course of their lives than high school grads. And while today’s auto mechanic, who goes to a vocational school and who is really a kind of computer engineer can earn as much, perhaps, as a doctor or lawyer, money is not the only value in life. Satisfaction, a key ingredient of happiness, is another.

So what do you get from a college education? Is it worth the price?

First let’s talk about price. In the United States, where education is viewed as the ladder to success, a traditional college education at a fine college has always been ranked at the top of the pyramid. Those schools are also the most expensive because they are mainly private. There are various scholarships to help, but for most without adequate resources those schools can be out of reach. Then there are public universities, many of which are exemplary and much cheaper, particularly if you live in state. And three cheers for the two-year community colleges that can carry you halfway to a college degree with truly minimum expense. There are also work-study schools that may take longer to graduate from, but who is holding a stopwatch on your life?

Anyway, what you get out of college is directly proportional to what you put in. Like the computer expression, it’s garbage in, garbage out. So what is the bottom line here? What can you expect to get out of a good, traditional college?

For starters, there is knowledge, knowledge about almost everything known to humans at the time you
attend. It’s there for the asking, assuming there is room for you to enroll in the classes of your choice. And if you go on to college reasonably soon after you graduate from high school, you can focus on acquiring the knowledge of your choice without the responsibilities of a spouse, a car, a house, children, a dog and making a living. In college, you have a roof over your head, your meals are prepared and the lawn is mowed for you. The knowledge you choose to acquire may or may not turn out to be directly applicable to the work that you eventually do, but it will certainly contribute to your understanding of your world — scientifically, culturally, historically, economically, politically, and that will give you profound satisfaction. If your job depends on what you know rather than how much you can lift, knowledge will extend your work life, at the senior end when those whose bodies can no longer respond to physical tasks may face uncertain “golden years.”

Learning, of course, doesn’t depend on or stop with a college education. But appreciation for the value of knowledge grows as we age. Boy, how I wish I could live again those college years. Now I would know why I was there.

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Recently I received a voicemail message asking me if we were planning to cover fairly a contentious issue currently in the community. The speaker cared deeply about one side, and said he understood that we had friends on the other side of the issue. As a result of those ties, were we going to favor them or, at the least, bury the story in the back of the paper where no one would read it?

Forty-two years ago this week, a handful of us started The Village Times in a tiny office but with great ambition. We promised to serve the community according to “the highest ideals of a free press.” It was 1976, the bicentennial year. We were well aware of the singular role the press played in the American Revolution and the sanctity with which the Founding Fathers viewed the press. Today, we acknowledge other forms of free speech and press by putting them all together and calling them “media.”

But the press, specifically the printed word on newsprint, will always be where my heart is in this business, no matter that we now have a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a place on YouTube and are called TBR News Media. We’ve gone viral on the internet, with over 17 million views for our story and video dealing with school safety in Rocky Point, and to have that kind of reach certainly impresses me. Nonetheless the printed story, the elegance of crafting exactly the right words to describe a scene or an issue or emotion, laid out efficiently and attractively, and most especially truthfully and fairly on a page, with pictures to drive home the information, gives me enormous professional satisfaction. Words as precision tools are not respected the same way on the more frenetic media.

Nor are truth and facts always respected there. Because there is little or no vetting, some people take advantage of the lawlessness to write the most astonishing things, slanted or even untrue as they may be, and others willingly believe what they read. Right now, Facebook, which was started in 2004, is facing the consequences of publishing unmonitored content presented as news or advertising, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries to answer hard questions put to him by the U.S. Congress.

Not to revel in another media’s troubles, but everything printed in a newspaper is vetted, even the ads, the sources of the ads and, to the extent possible for facts, the letters. That does not mean everything you might read in our papers is correct. We can and do make mistakes. But those are, or should be, immediately acknowledged and corrected in the next edition. Nor are we without bias, however hard we try. But if we try for a truthful and balanced presentation in every story that we print, to a large extent we can succeed. We reserve our opinions for the opinion pages.

At least, so I believe. With such a long track record, I was quite surprised to hear that question on my voicemail. The caller left his number, and I was able to return his phone call. We had a heart-to-heart talk, and that, along with the story we wrote, I trust, persuaded him that we had dealt with the matter fairly. If he were trying to encourage us to lean in his direction on the issue, his strategy clearly didn’t work.

Here are some of the other things newspapers don’t do. We don’t compile personal information about our readers and then sell that information to potential advertisers. We don’t even sell the names and
addresses of our subscribers, although we have been asked a number of times. Your privacy is not for our profit. We don’t write stories about businesses in order to get their advertising. Our newspapers have never been hacked. But I wouldn’t mind having a couple of their billions. And forgive my pride if I suggest that there is some kind of old-fashioned honor that underpins a good newspaper serving its community. That’s not a sentiment I associate with the internet.

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It was five years since I had a colonoscopy, so I made an appointment to repeat the procedure. It was not a date on the calendar I was looking forward to. I understand the importance of this test for me, so I did what I had to do. My dad died of intestinal cancer, as did several of his siblings, so the family warning is clear. Had this test been available at the time he was stricken, and his cancer discovered, I have little doubt that my dad, a robust and athletic man, would have otherwise lived a longer life than his 70 years.

A 2015 German study published in the European Journal of Cancer confirmed that colonoscopy screening “will lead to substantial reductions in the colorectal cancer burden.”

So what is a colonoscopy? I write to explain the test in the hopes of encouraging any readers who might be postponing and avoiding that appointment to take care of that little task once they turn 50. It is my understanding that in most cases, health insurance will cover the costs, which in itself is evidence of the importance of the test. And the experience is not so awful. In fact there is, so to speak, a silver lining, but more about that later.

Here are the details. A flexible tube, called a colonoscope, with a video camera on the end that is connected to a large screen in the room, is inserted through the rectum and allows the gastroenterologist to examine the inside of the large intestine. The physician then searches for any abnormalities such as polyps, which can turn into cancer, and usually removes them. The scope rides on a cushion of air that is provided, kind of like a maglev train moves along smoothly without touching the ground through magnetic levitation. The actual procedure takes only about 30-45 minutes, but between the prep at the office and the recovery, it’s a two-to-four hour event.

The first time I had this test, I wanted to be awake to see the inside of the intestine, which is actually quite beautiful. It looks like a braid, as much more surface area can effectively fit into a small area. Tiny red and blue blood vessels crisscross the sides. Of course in order to see all this clearly, the intestine must first be totally cleaned out, which is probably the less pleasant part of the whole deal. Some fasting is involved, anything red, like a tomato, or a seed or nut that might block the view, is to be avoided, and in the last 12 hours before the test, a liquid laxative that spikes 64 ounces of Gatorade is ingested.

I was advised to wear loose and comfortable clothing and to leave cash and jewelry at home. Upon arrival, I was given two of those infamous hospital gowns, one to face front and the other the rear. My clothes were secured in a locker, and after a thorough history was unhurriedly taken, the nurse placed an intravenous (IV) line into my arm.

After my first experience, I chose to be fully sedated this time. I was given the good news, that all was well, when I awoke. As a result of the sedation, however, I could not just get up and drive but needed to be accompanied by a companion. In my case it was my son, who could steer me through the hallway and into the car, then drive me home. Shortly after I arrived back in the kitchen, I realized I was ravenous and began refilling my intestine.

There is a mild bit of bloating after the test as a result of the air that is added, but that is not particularly uncomfortable and disappears within hours. I was advised not to drive a car, operate any machinery or power tools (unlikely), drink any alcoholic beverages or make any important decisions until the following day.

There are other forms of the colonoscopy that are somewhat less invasive, but my understanding is that this variant is the most thorough and therefore the most desirable. As for the silver lining? I did appear to lose a couple of pounds, at least for now.

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This year the real March Madness wasn’t basketball. It was the number of nor’easters we in the Northeast endured. This will forever be the year of the nor’easters, one right after the other with snowfalls, flooding and especially the high winds. Many old trees are no longer with us. As the first quarter of the new year ends, we are hopeful that the old adage, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb,” will prove to be true. The forecasts are promising.

We have some exciting plans for the community that we believe will further enliven the next quarter of the year. On June 12, TBR News Media — that’s us — will offer a new event. It is called Cooks, Books & Corks, and it will be held at the Bates House in Setauket. For those who might not know the location, it is that lovely house inside Frank Melville Park, near the Mill Pond, usually used for wedding receptions, and it can be reached via a driveway opposite the Emma Clark Library and just past the two entrance roads to Strong’s Neck. We will have balloons and signage marking the way.

So what is Cooks, Books & Corks? It is to be a grand marriage of mind and body on a joyful June Tuesday evening, from 6 to 9 p.m., that will combine good food from local restaurants with good books by local authors, all of which will go down easily with some good wine. We are encouraging the restauranteurs to bring tastings of their favorite dishes and the authors to offer their books for sale throughout the event. The views from the bluestone patio and the picture window are beautiful and serene in the middle of the woods, and we will hope for a soft, summer breeze to erase all memories of past nor’easters.

Besides being just plain fun and a forum for our local restaurants, local wineries and celebrated authors, Cooks, Books & Corks is a fundraiser intended to pay for an intern from the Stony Brook University School of Journalism this summer. We have held such fundraisers for that purpose in the past, and the internships have helped launch several young journalists into their careers. Tickets will be $50 per person for the food and wine, and although not tax deductible, all funds will go toward paying the intern. The cost of any books you might choose to buy will be up to you. We hope there will be irresistible books for children offered for sale as well as for us adults.

Further, a ticket to Cooks, Books & Corks will enable the purchaser to have a reserved seat at the Stony Brook premiere of our film, “One Life to Give,” to be held on June 24, a Sunday evening. The film is a prequel of sorts to the story of the Culper Spy Ring that played a vital role in the Revolutionary War. Headquartered in Setauket, Washington’s spies fed critical intelligence to the Patriots of such high value that, in one instance, information enabled French soldiers to disembark safely from their ships and join the fight in the colonies. The cable channel, AMC, ran popular stories of the spies, “Turn: Washington’s Spies,” for four seasons, which ended last year. Our full-length film, by contrast, endeavors to be historically authentic.

More details about the premiere will be forthcoming. I do want to give you this heads-up for the coming enjoyable events we have planned for the community. We think they will make you proud of where you live. And why do we do this? That’s easy. We’re committed to strengthening the sense of community because we are the community paper. And website. And social media. And now producers of historical films. Happy Spring!

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