There Is A Doctor in the House

 

Go figure.   

Okay, if you listened to my parents, doctors were evil and uncaring and money grabbing.   That is why they and all their contemporaries never went to see their doctors.   They wanted to hold onto their wallets.   What they didn't hold on to was a long life.    The whole bunch of them pretty much wiped out over a five year period.    Few made it past seventy.

I've been a little more trusting in my world.   But I have been largely lucky with my choice of physicians.   I regularly see specialists for urology, orthopedics, ENT, and gastro issues.   Plus I have a phenomenal internist who I have known for the last twenty five years and there's never been a situation where he doesn't call me back in a day.    I harken back to the day when I first met him.

"We will grow old together."

So, I don't have the same distrust that my elders did of the medical world.   Oddly, I do see those elements surprisingly in some of my contemporary friends.  They, too, won't see doctors and view them as...

...evil, uncaring, and money grabbing.

I don't get it.  Oh, sure, I've heard some horror stories of older doctors who seem to be taking it easy long before they've given up their practices.  I started to wonder if my friends were justified in their disdain of anybody with a MD after their name.

But, even though my doubts were very faint, they started to trickle in.   

And then I had an emergency.  The grand slam of hernias.   Four becoming active in my body all at once.   One day, I was fine.  Twenty four hours later, I was in a hospital bed consulting with a surgeon. 

But that whole ordeal, while unsettling, gave me an up-close look at the next generation of physicians.  And I like what I see.

So, said surgeon had an assistant who visited me.   Probably no more than thirty.  He was bright and personable and treated me as if I was his closest friend going under the knife.

Now my internist now works with a young UCLA Health fellow.   A doctor with the most wonderful and kindly of bedside manners.   He, too, was bright and personable and treated me as if I was his closest friend.

Two days after my hospital release, I started having some post-surgery vision issues.   I called my long term eye doctor but his schedule is tighter these days as he deals with being homeless after the Palisades fires last year.   But, as the office worker tells me, he, too, has taken on a young associate.   The guy calls me back within an hour.   Come on in tomorrow for an exam.

Again, another fledgling doctor who talked to me like...wait for it...I was his closest friend.  As I left after the exam, I asked if he could be my new eye doctor moving forward done.

All of the above got me thinking and it prompted me to ask my internist upon my follow-up visit several weeks later.

"What's going on in medical schools these days?"

Clearly, there is a switch in how they are training the next generation of healers.  Heck, my parents might be still around if they had doctors like this in their day.

My internist had no answer for me.   But there is something clearly afoot in Doctor School.  Hopefully, we all get to enjoy their work for many years to come.  

So, I suppose there is a Marcus Welby out there.

Dinner last night:  Chopped antipasto salad.

  

Monday Morning Video Laugh - March 23, 2026

 My blog anniversary continues with this high flying cat.  Remember?

Dinner last night:  Rigatoni with my homemade Bolognese sauce.

The Sunday Memory Drawers - Wafers R'Us

 

As we close out the Lenten season, let's get a little religious with our memories.

Here you go. Mom, Dad, and some dork in a robe that happens to be me on my confirmation day. Three people squinting wildly in the hot sun of a May Sunday afternoon. Not a smile in the bunch. It's about one hour after I first sampled the body and blood of Christ and I am guessing that the cardboard wafer is probably still stuck on my braces.

I remember this day vividly. I couldn't wait for it to be over. I had endured two years of Saturday morning religious instruction, made palatable only because my very first girlfriend was in the class with me. And it culminated in this afternoon, where my mind was drifting to the Met doubleheader on TV in the house. Lots of relatives afoot drinking and eating and smoking. And a stack of envelopes containing twenty dollar bills. My just reward for swallowing a paper tablet and some Gallo wine.

Unlike my Catholic chums up the block, us Lutherans were time-efficient and lumped the first Holy Communion and Confirmation into one single event. My mother used to quip that the Catholic kids were way too young to appreciate the sacraments at the age of 7. As for me, if it meant another afternoon filled with envelopes of twenty dollar bills, I would be a buyer for that religion. Because, as much as I dreaded the prospects of putting that wafer in my mouth, it turned out to be not so bad. And I got used to it all pretty darn quickly.

All through high school, I would receive Holy Communion on the first Sunday of the month. That wasn't me being obsessive compulsive. That was the only Sunday in the month that St. Peter's Lutheran Church on East 219th Street in the Bronx would offer it. But, I welcomed it as I began to understand the meaning behind it all and, for some mystical reason, I took it pretty seriously. 

Then, they changed pastors and I went to college. Wafers and wine were replaced by pretzels and 25 cent bottles of beer on the Fordham campus.

It wouldn't be until I returned to church when I moved to Los Angeles that I would again receive communion in a Lutheran church. And, years later, I found that the cardboard cookie had been replaced (at least at my church) by real challah bread. You actually felt like you were breaking bread as you are handed a morsel to dunk into the cabernet. I know the exact brand because I am the one at my church who buys the actual sacraments at Ralph's Supermarket every Saturday.

But, in the long interim between these blessings, there would be only one other time where communion almost filtered back into my world. In a Catholic church, of all places. The story, as I relate it, is not written to do any religion bashing or indict any particular clergy. But, it does illuminate how deeply seeded your childhood religious upbringing can be.

A few years after college, I was asked to be an usher for two Fordham friends who were taking the marital plunge. (They have since toweled off and left the pool permanently) Now, if you really want to piss me off, ask me to be an usher in your wedding party. Being the best man is impressive. I've been accorded that honor twice in my life. But, there is no other meaningless role than an usher at a wedding. Yo, Aunt Marge, you can find your own seat. It's a freakin' church. The closer you are, the better the view. Pure and simple. Essentially, what the groom is saying is that you are a close friend, but not the closest. 

Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need it, especially if I'm required to shove some portly bridesmaid around the dance floor to the strains of "Color My World." 

But, I digress...

I was asked to be an usher and I regrettably accepted. Comes the wedding day 
in Fordham University's Catholic chapel, I learn that the wedding will be officiated by two of the bride's relatives---a couple of ancient priests who might have seen the raising of Lazarus from the dead in person. These two fathers were the addled and scrambled types who hadn't opened their rectory windows since I Love Lucy was first run. And, since they didn't get out much except for bingo and Irish wakes, they were still under the misguided delusion that everybody in the world was Catholic. Well, indeed, in this wedding party, they probably were all Catholic. Except for me, the stalwart Protestant.

In what was an incredibly annoying wedding mass (the bride stood at some virginal statue for about two hours), I still managed to do all the kneeling at the most appropriate times. But, then, the two priests started to mess with the chalice and that dish where they keep the cardboard wafers. And they moved to approach where the wedding party was kneeling. I turned to another friend who was the usher beside me.

"What are they going to do now?"

My friend whispered, "They're gonna give us communion."

Huh? I poked him in the arm.

"I'm not Catholic."

My friend was no help. "Just take it. It's all the same thing."

It's all the same thing? It's all the same thing?? I thought about this. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that the wine and the wafer is the same in one Christian church as it is in the next. Probably purchased in the same church supply store on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx. But, I thought about my own religious background. The two years of Saturday indoctrination in the Lutheran faith leading up to the very first time I would receive communion. On the day of the picture heralding this entry. I thought about my parents and my childhood church and the fact that I had not gone for communion in my own faith for some time.

Nope, it wasn't the same. Not hardly. I would not take this blessing today. I had made my choice.

Getting the clergy in residence to accept that decision was another matter. The first fossil, Father Porcelana, held the wafer up in front of my mouth. I grunted as quietly as I could.

"No, thank you."

He stayed motionless. Holding the wafer in front of me as if I was a beagle being asked to sit up and beg for a Milk Bone treat. He stood there for a minute that felt like ten. When he finally got the notion that this was a religious staredown, he moved on. Then, on came Father Metamucil with the chalice of wine. In his moth ball reeking robes, he had witnessed none of the other drama that had just befallen me.

"The blood of Christ..."

It was eternity and we might have witnessed the second coming. He held the wine to my mouth. I looked at him as if he was crazy. And perhaps he was. At last, he moved on to the next person he would drip on.

Yeah, it's the same thing. But, somehow, it's different. For me, it's incredibly personal. As it should be.

Dinner last night:  Rustica cake.

Classic Movie Trailer of the Month - March 2026

Yikes, this classic is 30 years old this month.   And yet another teardrop for Robin Williams. 

Dinner last night:  Cheese and crackers.

Honk If You...

Dinner last night:   Salisbury steak.
 

The Best Picture of the Year...Not

 

Long time readers of this blog over the past 19 years know that I used to have a very Oscar-eccentric content.   Lots of movie reviews.  Pix for your office pool.  Writing what two Jewish film pros had to say about the nominations and awards while eating pastrami on rye.

We sure did have a lot of Oscar fun.  And then COVID hit and the movie business changed to one where you need a living room couch or recliner.   And the content got darker and darker as if everybody in film production had an axe to grind.  It was no longer about entertainment.

Personally, I couldn't wait to watch on Oscar Sunday.   I'd go see all the nominees before hand.  On the big day, I would make a big slow cooker of chili, invite some friends, and make fun of the idiots on parade.   This year, I was invited to another Oscar event and, frankly, I didn't even realize it was Award Day or Night.

Given all of the above, it was no surprise in this age of nobody cares, a crummy movie like "One Battle After Another" wins the top prize.  Ironically, it was the only nominated feature I saw and I did that the previous night.   I was unimpressed.   The movie was long, boring, self-conscious and full of rotten, hateful characters.  

Just more of the same.   With a sinister politically-oriented POV. this movie seems like it was made just six months ago and produced by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.  It's all about old revolutionaries who are spiriting illegal immigrants into the country so they can fuck with America.   Meanwhile, the film is set fifteen years in the past so I suppose that makes writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson a genius along with being Maya Rudolph's husband.

Super lib Leonardo DiCaprio plays one of the scumbags who fears his daughter has been abducted by the evil US military as commanded by the always annoying-to-watch Sean Penn.  DiCaprio has to use a password to get recognized by his fellow terrorists and it's "Green Acres Beverly Hillbillies Hooterville Junction."  Why not Petticoat?  That particular plot point bothered me the whole movie.  As if I wasn't already bothered by watching the damn thing in the first place.

All these scumbags arrive at some critical point five or six hours later...or maybe the 2 hour and 45 minute run time was really accurate.  Whatever...it's another demented view of the United States and it's just another black mark on Hollywood.

And the most undeserved Oscar goes to...

LEN'S RATING:  One star.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

This Date in History - March 18

 

Happy birthday in Heaven, Kevin Dobson.   We make it a policy here always to celebrate special days of Knots Landing actors.  No social distancing here.

37:  THE ROMAN SENATE ANNULS TIBERIUS' WILL AND PROCLAIMS CALIGULA EMPEROR.

Okay, now the fun begins.

633:  THE ARABIAN PENINSULA IS UNITED UNDER THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY OF CALIPH ABU BAKR.

Good.  I was worried.

1229:  FREDERICK II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR, DECLARES HIMSELF KING OF JERUSALEM IN THE SIXTH CRUSADE.

And later he calls himself the Duke of Earl.

1314:  JACQUES DE MOLAY, THE LAST GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, IS BURNED AT THE STAKE.

I hope they used a good brand of olive oil.

1438:  ALBERT II OF HABSBURG BECOMES HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR.

But we won't be as much fun as Caligula.

1608: SUSENYOS IS FORMALLY CROWNED EMPEROR OF ETHIOPIA.

Susenyos?   Wasn't that a Phil Collins song?

1741:  NEW YORK GOVERNOR GEORGE CLARKE'S COMPLEX AT FORT GEORGE IN BURNED IN AN ARSON ATTACK, STARTING THE NEW YORK CONSPIRACY OF 1741.

There's no conspiracy.   I just wish all these people weren't against me.

1766:  THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT REPEALS THE STAMP ACT.

Forcing everybody to deliver their letters in person.

1848:  IN BERLIN, THERE IS A STRUGGLE BETWEEN CITIZENS AND MILITARY, COSTING ABOUT 300 LIVES.

That's a little more than a struggle in my book.

1850:  AMERICAN EXPRESS IS FOUNDED BY HENRY WELLS AND WILLIAM FARGO.

Don't leave home without them.

1865:  DURING THE CIVIL WAR, THE CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES ADJOURNS FOR THE LAST TIME.

Last one out, please shut off the lights.

1886:  ACTOR EDWARD EVERETT HORTON IS BORN.

Mrs.Horton Has a What?

1892:  FORMER GOVERNOR GENERAL LORD STANLEY PLEDGES TO DONATE A SILVER CHALLENGE CUP AS AN AWARD FOR THE BEST HOCKEY TEAM IN CANADA.

Little did he know that some players would be peeing in it 100 years later.

1915:  DURING WORLD WAR I, THREE BATTLESHIPS ARE SUNK DURING A FAILED BRITISH AND FRENCH NAVAL ATTACK.

I used to re-enact this in the bathtub when I was a kid.

1922:  IN INDIA, MOHANDAS GANDHI IS SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Going, going, Gandhi.

1926:  ACTOR PETER GRAVES IS BORN.

He dies in 2010.  No, wait, he self-destructs.

1927:  AUTHOR GEORGE PLIMPTON IS BORN.

I never quite knew what this guy wrote.

1940:  ADOLF HITLER AND BENITO MUSSOLINI MEET AT THE BRENNER PASS IN THE ALPS AND AGREE TO FROM AN ALLIANCE AGAINST FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Such a sinister act to have over a nice cup of Ovaltine,

1942:  THE WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY IS ESTABLISHED IN THE US TO TAKE JAPANESE AMERICANS INTO CUSTODY.

Relocation is a nice way to say "internment."

1943:  ACTOR KEVIN DOBSON IS BORN.

Every Thursday night at 10PM for over twelve years, this guy was one of my heroes.

1944:  THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS IN ITALY KILLS 26 PEOPLE AND CAUSES THOUSANDS TO FLEE THEIR HOMES.

I guess you can't blame them.

1945:  OVER 1,200 AMERICAN BOMBERS ATTACK BERLIN.

Finally.

1959:  PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER SIGNS A BILL INTO LAW ALLOWING FOR HAWAIIAN STATEHOOD.

Aloha.

1970:  THE US POSTAL STRIKE OF 1970 BEGINS, ONE OF THE LARGEST WILDCAT STRIKES IN US HISTORY.

I think my mailman, who shows up after 6PM most days, must still think he's on the picket line.

1990:  GERMANS VOTE IN THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS IN THE FORMER COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP.

Can somebody show me how to pull this lever?

1992:  IN A NATIONAL REFERENDUM, WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO END THE RACIST POLICY OF APARTHEID.

Would they do the same thing if they knew Al Sharpton?

2001:  SINGER JOHN PHILLIPS DIES.

All my leaves are brown...and my face is pale.

2009:  ACTRESS NATASHA RICHARDSON DIES.

Reason # 77 why people over 40 should not ski.

2010:  ACTOR FESS PARKER DIES.

That raccoon wants his skin back.

2017:  MUSICIAN CHUCK BERRY DIES.

Rock and Roll now fatherless.

Dinner last night:  Hamburger.