Rebane's Ruminations

Trump Derangement Syndrome – 31jan23

George Rebane

Per the suggestion of one of our readers to gather under its own category all things concerning the ongoings of our intrepid former president Donald Trump, at Typepad’s pleasure I am attempting to add the category of ‘All Things Trump’ in an effort to cleanse future RR’s comment streams of the years-long repetitive Trump-related flotsam and jetsam, especially the ongoing drone of TDS comments.  Readers who continue to enjoy such affinities now have a place to go, consume, and contribute to these diatribes.  We’ll try inserting here from time-to-time fresh ‘sandbox like’ TDS entries to this category to maintain currency with the 2024 election’s advent.  So this is your first repository for all-things-Trump comments.

I will do my best to delete Trump-drivel from other comment streams.

Mensis Horriblis – January 2023

George Rebane

The month that changed my life and perception of the human condition.  Due to the onset of a number of health related factors last year, including both Jo Ann and me coming down with Covid, my kidneys decided to go into acute renal failure, and I came to within one day of leaving this orb before they put me on dialysis and refined the diagnosis to prescribe the hopeful treatment regimen that allowed me to return home after three dreadful weeks under the tender mercies of my medical team at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley.  (I will write more later about what I learned about our post-Covid healthcare system – it was eye-opening, up close, and very personal.)  I was in the hospital from the first week in January, and returned home last Thursday.

Here I want to thank all of you in our RR community for the outpouring of well-wishes and prayers for my recovery – I am overwhelmed and blessed by all the kindness that you have shown.  My family, of course, rallied around the homestead and helped Jo Ann shoulder the stress of caring that included planning sessions for my on-off incipient death as new test results came in.

So now the prognosis du jour is that my kidneys have a good chance of recovering after an appropriate interval of dialysis and steroid treatment – but no guarantees.  After 80+ years of excellent health, I have now been shown the other side of the coin and understand what it means to be an utterly helpless potted plant.  But today, onward!

A View from the Eighties

George Rebane

I am 83, still functioning but past my prime. Most of the college professors and high-school teachers in my cohort have already been shuffled out of the classroom. I concede I shouldn’t be running for president or chairman of a board at my age. I’m terrible at understanding new trends and technologies. But history and literature—the events and works of the past—don’t change at all. All we can do is to try to understand why long-gone people did what they did and said what they said.

So writes retired Prof Wight Martindale Jr (here) as he looks back and looks around at what useful functions we older people can still perform, and especially to our newest generation itching to make their mark.  I too am in my eighties and share most of the good professor’s thoughts about some of the unique things those with many birthdays can do for our young.  These past many years readers have been subjected to my own particular outlook, biases, and predilections presented in an unabashed style, big words and all.

I view the eighties as one of life’s special decades, one in which many of us still retain most of our marbles and memories, and one from which most of us will exit on a gurney.  In the US fewer than two out of five males reaching eighty will see ninety.   Females fare better, almost half of them reaching eighty will reach ninety.  But any way you cut it, in your eighties you have arrived in the ‘decade of dreaded diseases and death’.  So, while you hope for the best, have your exit plan in place.

Sandbox – 1jan23

[Well, Happy 2023 everyone and we might as well start the new year off with a fresh sandbox.  In the 19dec22 Sandbox Mr scenes offered an intriguing suggestion (830am) in an attempt to eliminate the detritus of TDS and things gratuitously Trump from continually contaminating practically every other topic with yet another boring lap around the Trump barn.  He suggested that RR add a Trump category and restrict posting of Trump-centric comments to that category.  I envision it being structured like the Sandbox with dated, and perhaps even topical, labels so that the comment streams don’t become too long.  I need to noodle on this and invite readers’ ideas about how it would work.  gjr]