Solstice 2008

Solstice, 2008



Dear Ones:

Once again, I sit down to address you, one and all, and sum up our collective year, at least from my point of view. Once again, that point has shifted. I am writing from the Left Coast, our new home as of July. Woah, Nellie Belle, what happened there? Well therein lies a tale, of course. As I wrote to you last year, I had no inkling that all this would transpire. I was laboring along at the salt mines, running my little emergency department, when a patient complaint prompted a visit from our friends at the state hospital regulatory agency. The redoubtable harpies of infinite power descended, and found no merit to the complaint, but since they were there, they poked around in our processes, and found fault with our triage system. Now we had been through changes at the nursing director level three times in two years, and our manuals did not represent our practice, but Golly Day, we had only a handful of unattended deaths in the waiting room, and never made the national news. So what was all the fuss about? Anyway, the new CEO of our hospital, a star graduate of the Saddam School of Business and Personnel Management, reacted to the criticism by extending a mentoring hand to me personally, explaining that this failure of nursing practice was all my fault, and I had better fix it, or be replaced. I was inspired by his leadership and frank display of raw executive power. I fixed it, of course. But my heartfelt personal discussion with him about my longstanding commitment to the organization, and my feeling that we should work to settle differences without resorting to threats, apparently inspired him to respond with more threats, since he obviously had my undivided attention. I had to admire his rigorous empiricism, born, I am sure, of his training in outcomes-driven management, as taught at Saddam U. and all the other august institutions of business learning. He was clearly a deep thinker, a devotee of Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. I was Lassie, to his Rudd Weatherwax. In other words, his bitch. So I went out into the cold, cruel world, to see if I was even employable in my trade. I looked long and hard at a job in Springfield, OH, with a very nice group of docs, but some dreary hospitals, which were, after all, in Springfield. I was relieved, at least, to find that I was, in fact employable. That allowed me to drop off a resignation letter, while I continued to job shop. I jetted out with Catherine to the Seattle area (in a jet born in Seattle), and interviewed with another great group. We decided that location, location, location were the top three factors to consider. So we bit. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Admin types were completely dumbfounded that I would leave. I walked away from a leadership position, and a fair bit of cash, but I packed the last scraps of my self-esteem into a TSA-compliant Ziploc bag, and we moved on. We had a massive yard sale, divested ourselves of fifteen plus years of dust-collecting STUFF, packed the rest into PODS, and set forth in our car for the transcontinental tour. Everett came along for comic relief and referee duty. We visited grandkids enroute, stopped at Mt. Rushmore and the Custer Battlefield, coincidentally on the anniversary of the big event, and just enjoyed the slow passage of our enormous and wonderful country. We did manage to sell our house, for considerably less than fantasized, but we sold it. Quite the feat in this market, I now realize…our realtor calls to thank us almost daily.
Our new environs are fantastic. We have a rental house in Anacortes, Washington, on Fidalgo Island, in the San Juans. The kitchen is all dolled up for the little lady of the house, but the rest is pure Motel 6. However, we enjoy views of Mt. Baker, snow-capped year round, and sunsets over stunning views of the Puget Sound and the islands. A 220 acre park is less than a mile from here, with a 2.2 mile trail hike through Douglas Fir forests and sea cliffs, featuring bald eagles, seals and sea otters, to name a few of the critters we see frequently. So we are out nearly daily for a constitutional, and much more active, as a result. We are consequently too tired for sex, but you gotta take the yang with the yin. The town is pretty cosmopolitan, with a lot of cool retirees of worldly background, a great library, interesting restaurants, local theatre, the Cascades a half an hour to the east, Vancouver, BC 90 minutes north, and of course, Seattle the same distance to the south. People out here are so different, so considerate. If you use your blinker in traffic, they let you in. If you stop on the street and look lost, people ask if they can help you. It is astounding. The pace is slower, gentler, more accommodating. They recycle. They pick things up when they drop them. Catherine spends her days surfing real estate porn, and we are making offers on houses here and there, being patient for a good deal in this buyer’s market. The upset has definitely jolted us out of our former doldrums in a big way. So, to bottom-line it for you, Lassie ain’t comin’ home. Work is, well, work. If it was all that much fun, they would have named it “sex”, but they didn’t. They named it “work”. It is WERQ, the radio station where the music sucks, the volume is too high, and you can’t turn it off. My new group is really a great bunch of docs. It is a privilege to be part of the gang, for sure, because they are a really top-notch group. I hope someday to be a worthy member, but I have a lot of proving of myself to do. I will be happy when a couple of years go by, and I am not the FNG, looked at with that “show me” attitude that greets new guys everywhere. My old group has had some staffing difficulties since I left, so I continue to jet out to Delaware for a 5 night moonlighting stretch in the old ER on a monthly basis, staying at the Holiday Inn Express, and getting smarter every month. It pays the bills, and they miss me and like me there…what can I say? But I get to visit with the kids, do local chores, and torture myself with thoughts of what might have been. Meanwhile, the Saddam-ite CEO who caused my departure has resigned, to take a job at Rutgers. Sorry about THEIR luck, but good for Nanticoke, because he was a plague. Just after resigning, he got some sort of cancer, and had an eye cut out. Bummer. Word on the street is, “Don’t eff with Roberts, because it is bad ju-ju.” Wasn’t nothing to do with me, but all the same, don’t eff with Roberts. So, I have discovered, after all, it is not so bad to be just a line soldier, instead of an officer. I am only responsible for my own bowel and bladder control, and not everybody else’s. My own continence is responsibility enough. I do miss all the meetings. God, I miss the meetings. But I have learned a lot about making lemonade.
Meanwhile, we have all experienced the unbelievable change in the political landscape. We sat through October, biting our nails, waiting for the October Surprise promised by the attack dogs of right-wing radio, only there was no surprise. Except the finish. Are my eyes deceiving me, or is the president-elect a Kneegrow? In my lifetime? Unfreakingbelievable. I just waited for the Dems to screw up, in typical Democratic fashion, and hand the thing again to the guys who gave us Iraq, and soon, Iran. But no, it was those wascally Pubs who screwed up, sucking up to the hardest-line right-wingiest wackos, and bringing us that bubbly, big-breasted Maverick, whose grasp will never exceed her reach. I looked up ‘maverick’. Turns out it is a cow. But instead of more of the same-old same-old, the People actually found someone who seems to understand what to do, who values history more than personal gain, who might just lead our sorry asses into the 21st Century, kicking, screaming and dragging our heels as we may. I am still biting my nails, but that is an oral fixation I can’t give up. But I am starting to believe. This electoral process gives me some hope for our system and our people. I thought the deals were generally done in back rooms, and that candidates were pre-ordained. But the primary system, assaying the voice of the people, produced an unlikely winner for the Dems, one who would not have been pushed forward from the old smoke-filled room. And he trounced a war hero, for whom I had a good deal of respect, in a fair fight over ideas rather than personality. So it is theirs to fumble, but I am feeling just the slightest glimmer of hope that we are headed in a better direction. That is all good news for our many friends in the military. Nathanael has returned from Iraq, and is finishing his degree in exercise physiology at Salisbury University, in Maryland. He was notified to return to the Army for reactivation under the Individual Ready Reserve clause in his enlistment contract, but after some discussion, his 50% disability under the VA system convinced them he was not a good candidate for cannon fodder, and they released him once and for all. (Big collective sigh of relief!) He did his bit, got his Purple Heart, and somebody else needs to step up. Sorry that is still the case, since nobody should ever have stepped up to this misguided miscarriage of international relations, but nevertheless, Nat did his part, and more. He is doing well, and we are very proud of the fine young man he has become.
Catherine continues her efforts to comfort the returning veterans, with her Quilts of Valor Foundation. She has caused the delivery of over 20,000 quilts to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, with at least five times that number as the goal, and continues to make the news in her efforts. She is looking for corporate sponsorship, and is close to securing some, to make the goal achievable. She loves it loves it loves it out here, and I am most glad for her in our move, that she has taken so well to the new environment. Check out her website at www.QOVF.org and consider a year-end, tax-deductible donation.
Hannah is in her last semester of her last year at the Naval Academy, looking forward to her commissioning as an Ensign, and her assignment to the fleet. She may be in Japan or Hawaii soon, seeing the world at Gummint expense. She has continued her long distance running career, with a 100-mile run in the Shenandoah Mountains, called the “Grindstone 100.” Everett and I went, along with Margaret and friend Mike, as support crew, to watch her do a hundred miles on mountain trails, with 46,000 vertical feet, over 31 hours and 52 minutes. She did complete the run, and brother Everett did the last 21 miles with her, while sister Michele joined them for the last 14 miles. Her description of the event can be viewed as a reprint on my blog, www.bobchristopher.blogspot.com , or on the Grindstone 100 site. Good reading. She writes well, too. But it was an amazing effort on her part. Just consider being on your feet for 32 hours. Now climb 23000 feet up, and 23000 feet back down. And put 100.7 miles behind you, on rough mountain trails, more than half in the dark, with a headlight for lighting. Now you sort of get it. Harder than woodpecker lips, she is.
Everett is finishing his Junior year at St. John’s College, progressing well in his evolution from charming slacker, to erudite worldly and well-educated charming slacker. He has been rowing for the school team, and has a sixteen-foot oar in his twelve-foot room, engraved with his name, along with all the previous recipients, for being the rower of the year on the team. He is working at the Naval Academy Library, earning his spending cash, and has discovered the wonderful world of work. He continues to think about What To Do Afterwards, varying from Medicine, (discouraged by his parents) to Law, to the Foreign Service, but all things are possible. As long as they don’t involve more tuition payments from me. He has matured a great deal this year, and is now quite the worldly young man.
Michele is immersed in motherhood, still in Columbus, OH, with kids Jack, now three, and Lily, now almost two, occupying all of her time. We iChat with them frequently, and wish they were closer. Husband Eric is still flying some, administrating some, and has a good bit of time at home. Never enough, but better than when he was only a line pilot.
Not much has changed with ER life, even with the translocation. The demographics are a bit different, but the complaints remain the same. Little chubby picture-of-health Hispanic infants still “cry too much”, and are brought for a total body workup. People who ingest meth and coke and heroin still insist that it must be lab error, or sidestream smoke that lit up their urine drug screen in all measured categories. Not that it was tough to tell. The black teeth, showing only as black circles in red, dry gums, looking like a stockade fence burned over in a prairie fire, are hard to explain otherwise. “Oh, my last pregnancy did that to my teeth.” they will say. Maybe so, but the product of that last pregnancy is pinging around the exam room like a pinball as we speak, dismantling furniture, and grunting in Neolithic proto-language, so the teeth are the least of our collective worries. “He has Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” they say knowingly. And so they have a lifetime ticket to the state-funded, all-you-can-eat Ritalin party going on at their house. The kid ain’t getting his meds, I can tell you for sure. His urine is clean as the driven snow, sidestream smoke notwithstanding. He must not have inhaled…
What remains truly amazing, and apparently unchanging from coast to coast, is this observation: Every medical condition known to modern medicine has one solution, and it is really all you need to know as an ER Doc. Now the name of this amazing agent is not the answer to one single Board of Medical Examiners question, and is not anywhere revealed in the published literature as the cure-all it truly is. Sounds like a conspiracy by the Medico-Pharmaco-Industrial Complex to deprive the suffering public of a miracle cure, if you ask me. But ask almost any patient what is the cure for their condition, and the answer is Percocet. Even Rush Limbaugh knows that. Everybody knows that. So why do ER Docs not know that? Well they do, but it doesn’t get them a passing score on the Boards to know that. It only gives them top scores on the patient satisfaction surveys. But every human on earth apparently suffers from insufficient Percocet levels in the blood, and if we could only fix that, all would be well. I wasted a lot of time in medical school, learning all the rest of it. Should have jumped to the Cliff Notes, instead, and partied the rest of the time.
I did achieve a momentary connection with national news, just after my arrival here. You may or may not have remarked on yet another mass shooting, this one in our neighborhood. A local psychotic fellow was released by the mental health system, stole a gun, and went on a rampage, killing 6, including a really lovely female police officer who had befriended him, and wounding a couple of others. I was on duty, and took care of one of the wounded. Hannah actually called me that day and asked if I had heard about the shooting, so I know it made the news briefly. My moment of fame, and I hardly had time to realize that was it. I was hustled back to standard-issue anonymity again as fast as you can say “mass murderer--details at eleven.”
I pause to note the passing of a few notables from our midst, to wit: William F. Buckley, and George Carlin, wordsmiths each for better or worse, along with Arthur C. Clarke, who made me think big thoughts. I met Ed Hillary in Nepal, and he was always an inspiration to me, but is gone now. Paul Newman was the epitome of cool, and is now even cooler, I guess. So long also to Studs Terkel with whom I once had lunch, Sunny von Bulow, Eddy Arnold, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, survivor of the Gulag, Dith Pran, survivor of Cambodia’s Killing Fields, and Isaac Hayes. He was a complicated man, and no one understands him, ‘cept his woman. And sad farewell to Antonio Caldarella, Catherine’s father, WWII Vet, and member of the “greatest generation.”
And so, dear friends and usetobes, wannabes, gonnabes and essobees, let us circle our wagons again against the darkness, waiting for the 47 degree wobble of our blue orb, to bring us back to long warm days and short, torrid nights. Perhaps we already see a glimmer of light and understanding beginning to show, even as we spin into this dark solstice in uncertain times. There will almost surely be a 47 degree wobble in the markets too, collective human behavior being just as cyclic as the solar system, only not as reliable. Our 201-Ks will again become 401-Ks, our houses will again become worth more than our mortgages, and we will meanwhile rediscover home cooking, and the value of leftovers, to the benefit of our waistlines. We look forward to being welcomed back to the community of nations as partners, and as inspirers, and look back to the example of the “greatest generation,” for how our sacrifices and hard work will make our world better, safer, and cleaner. So pull out those iPod earphones, put away that Blackberry, push back from that flat screen, and gather your loved ones around, tell stories of how it was, listen to how it might be, and dream together of how to make that happen.

Cheers, best, love, like, bemused indifference, or whatever suits,

Grindstone 100

Monday, October 13, 2008
Hannah Roberts' Grindstone Report

On one hand, everything is good in moderation. On the other, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. I spent six or seven months seriously dedicated to making sure that 100 miles in the mountains was still in my zone of moderation while pushing farther and harder than anything else I had attempted. Though I attacked my training for the Grindstone 100 with a level of dedication that forced me into a mildly antisocial, sober, reclusive spell, I showed up to the starting line blissfully ignorant of what a finish on the Grindstone course would mean.

I knew the bare minimums: I had 38 hours to run 100.73 miles, which at that pace worked out to 22:38 minute miles, and there were roughly 23,200 feet of climb and the same distance down. Honestly that was all I knew. I listened half heartedly to the prerace brief because I knew that at that point, the information was too little too late. I did catch a lot of “this part will eat your lunch,” which left me both curious and slightly shaken in my confidence. My prerace plan was to endear myself to a salty, experienced ultra runner and hang with him for at least the first night. I was lucky enough to meet Dave Snipes, and he agreed to pace me and his friends to our first 100 mile finish, somewhere in the 34 hour pace group, and I felt fulfilled as far as my prerace plan was concerned.

We took off and during that first night, I knew I was going too fast. I knew I was attacking the down hills too aggressively, but I knew that I was trading caution for companionship, and within hours I had settled into a comfortable group of four. Dave in the lead, I followed closely enough to clip his heels every so often. For the first 20 or 30 miles, I felt great, my legs continued to feel fresh even after many long climbs. I refused to acknowledge each daunting climb, and it was easy because the night limited my vision to an 8 square foot circle that my head lamp illuminated. The only thing I really focused on was Dave’s footwork, which made the hills much less intimidating than seeing mountains rise up before you knowing you had to go up there. I remembered Mr. Clark Zealand’s prerace brief, “go out there and enjoy the beauty of god’s creation,” which I’m sure he delivered with a slight smirk. I guess I finally got the joke: I saw many many miles of the beautiful mountain trails pass by foot by foot. All things are good in moderation.

We made it to the turn around before sunrise, but once day broke that was more or less the end of my feelings of going too fast. I had one final surge, one final high of the day: I sprinted down a hill to catch up with my group and sang Oklahoma’s “Oh what a beautiful mornin’,” at the top of my lungs. If I passed you as you were climbing that hill and you thought I was being cocky or obnoxious, surely justice was dealt as I neither sang nor sprinted for the rest of the day, and going fast was only a memory of times gone past.

I hung in there with Dave for the better part of 20 hours, but I lost the ability to descend, and could not keep pace. I fell a lot. I swore a lot. I cried, despite the promises I made myself to scrape it together until I reached a respectable distance. I made it to mile 80. My brother paced me from Dowells Draft, and it was very frustrating for me to know I had less than a 50k left but it would take me probably 12 hours. I collapsed on the trail for a little bit, watched as runners passed me. I got it together and with the help of my brother, reached the second to last aid station. There my sister joined us, and the three of us set off for the remaining 15 miles. Those miles were long, they were painful, they were frustrating, but I am grateful they were not lonely or desperate. I took comfort in the fact that forward progress, granted painfully slow, amounts to something eventually.

The beauty of the course was not lost on my sister, who reminded me that the sunset, the views of the mountains, the trees, the leaves, the streams, the stars were all things we were lucky to behold. I didn’t tell her that I had been lucky to have been beholding all these wonders for 24 or more hours, because there was no need to be spiteful, but it is further evidence for the saying that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. She was right; the second sunset was a sight I felt fortunate to see.

The course got familiar; I knew we were getting closer to the finish. I knew that despite the pain, there was nothing, save a cougar or bear that would stop me from finishing the Grindstone 100. A little before 2 in the morning on Sunday, 5 October, I crossed the finish line with my younger brother and older sister as my dad watched.

Even when things got bad, I knew I was doing what I love to do. Though I will race again, I feel fortunate that this time next year I will be safely deployed in the war on terror, far and away from Swoope, Virginia. I say this, but surely if I find myself next October near the starting line, the challenge, companionship, beauty and intensity of the race will pull me such that I will likely find myself at the finish.

I am proud to have finished in the inaugural year, I am exceptionally proud of the first half of my race before the bottom fell out. I am proud to say my first 100 miler was a hard one. More importantly, I have many people to thank and I feel a great sense of indebtedness to my crew. Thank you to the volunteers and aid station workers. Thank you Dave Snipes for lending me your expertise. Thank you to my sister and brother for sticking with me on that last stretch. Thanks to my aunt and her boyfriend, my father, my family that were pulling for me from afar. Thank you to my friends who were supportive and understanding during the entire weekend and my reclusive training spell. Thank you all, because without your help, there would be little to be proud of.

Hedgerows/Elegy for Pat Nadurak

Twenty years later,
we talk as though
we had never parted.

What a strange bond, that
lets us speak the same words,
without a doubt as to meaning,
that lets us know the meaning,
without a worry about the words.

Do we actually know
our minds that way?
Not even our own,
never mind another’s.

Still we push along,
in parallel lines, checking
over the hedgerows only rarely,
and yet still in stride.

Until we check again,
and one is gone,
and the words go unanswered.

Requiem for Pat Nadurak

I haven’t been in frequent touch with Pat for many years. We were in frequent contact in Vermont, when we lived a mile apart, and were delighted to find kindred spirits in the frozen north. We have communicated only by letter and phone in the 18 years since. Pat and Chris had moved on, too, but whenever we did talk on the phone, we spoke as if we still lived a mile apart, and would likely see each other the next day. Pat was that way. Immediate, open, friendly, and once she counted you as a friend, eternally faithful to that bond. Distances didn’t change that. Even time didn’t change that. We lived parallel lives, running in parallel paths, and checking with each other over the hedgerows as we ran, but checking only confirmed the fact that we were keeping up with each other, we were still there. We always just picked up where we left off, never missing a beat, as if we had just returned to Vermont from a couple of days out of town. I have a very few friends like that, who never fade away despite distance and time. Not enough, never enough. And now one has faded away. I am checking over my hedgerow, and Pat is not there. Still, as for the friendship, nothing has changed. She will ever be immediate, open, friendly, eternally faithful to our bond, and I am pleased and honored that she counted us as friends. I am sure that I could tell her of my latest travails, and she would provide the saucy, sardonic reflection that she always did, and I would feel better. I could tell her that the world is and emptier place without her, and she would have a saucy, wise answer for that. And she’d be right, too. We will miss her from a distance. We remember the wide, open face, the sidelong look, the arched eyebrow, the enormous welcoming smile, the “can do anything” approach to every problem, and the energy, the boundless, infectious energy. Farewell, old friend and dear. Don’t laugh at us too much while we grieve, and then try to move on.

Doctor Cog

Who’d a thunk it?
Three months ago, I was laboring along in the traces, running my small Emergency Department, working my shifts, and oblivious to how life can change in a day. My hospital is under some stress. We are losing money, losing doctors, losing entire service lines. The Board fired a CEO they had just hired, gave him his golden handshake, and said “Enough!” The new CEO, incidentally the second choice at the hiring of the failed first CEO, came in to turn things around. Meanwhile, we had also lost our COO, CFO, CMO, CNO (chief nursing officer), all of whom were replaced by consultant temps. And they invited their buddies, more consultants, who jet in on Monday, and out on Thursday, all on the Hospital’s account, and tell us how to do everything, from recruiting to staffing to bricks and mortar and maintenance. So there is literally no institutional memory left in the Admin suite. The want to know “What have you done for me lately? And by the way, I am new here.” The consultants all recommend the same thing. Cut staff, cut costs, be more efficient. But the cuts go to bone, and whole floors are now closed, to the point that we cannot get a bed for a patient for 6 hours, because there are no nurses to care for them upstairs, but yet we are attacked in meetings for slow turnaround times. “Don’t bother me with the facts, I already know you are the problem.” It is disheartening. Any attempt to discuss things is characterized as "defensiveness". Any advocacy for patients or nurses is ruled as not in my purview, or "off the table". I used to have administrators who said no when they meant it, and yes when they could, but you could believe what they said. Now I know better than ever to go to a meeting without my tall boots and a forked stick. These new bosses have made it clear that nobody is individually important or respected, and anybody and everybody is replaceable, just a cog in the larger machine. I believe them when they say that, because they are proving it daily. The hospital is being gutted, strafed, and burned to ashes, and the people who have dedicated large parts of their lives to its success and survival are being cast aside like used Kleenex. The consultants are being paid, for sure, and right off the top. But I am left wondering, why do we need all these guys? Why are the folks hired to manage things unable to manage without all these consultants? Isn’t that their job? If they can’t manage, why are they still here, when people who can actually do something, like nurses and doctors, are gone? This Consultancy is starting to resemble the Consultancy which was rendered to Atlanta by General Sherman. We will be a forest of chimneys standing amid heaps of smoking rubble. And the CEO will move on to another hospital in trouble, and repeat the process, while the consultant sharks will swim to the next scent of blood in the water, right behind him.
Anyway, after a couple of discussions of problems in the ED opened with threats to fire my company and replace me, it became clear to me that my fifteen years of service here, and good reputation generally, meant nothing to these guys. Every day started as if with the premise, "We might get divorced today, Honey, but let's see how the day goes." Hard to endure a marriage on that basis. Hard to even finish your Cheerios. So I started looking for a new gig. Now that is stressful. I am not one who keeps an up-to-date CV all polished and ready to send out. I was planning on retiring out of here in eight or ten years. Putting all the gritty details of 23 years of practice onto paper, and finding and copying all the documents required by all the committees and state regulators is a tedious and painful chore. They want everything. They want dates of graduation, of starting and stopping residency, of each job, copies of every diploma, board certification, your latest Trauma Life Support and Cardiac Life Support cards, and copies every insurance policy ever issued in your name, even if paid for and held solely by your past employers, who have long since gone out of business. They want letters certifying competence, character, and moral fiber, and confirmation that you left each job in good standing, and not under investigation. They want a criminal background check, a National Practitioner Databank Search, and a record of every complaint ever filed against you. Then they want sworn statements verifying all the above, which they are verifying primarily anyway. It is a lot to assemble. But it is done, for now, and I await the judgment of the State, and various credentials committees at hospitals where I might be working soon. It takes 60-90 days, it turns out, no matter what state you go to. Like all Chinese food is ready in “ten minute”. Sixty to ninety days, they tell you, but they mean 120. Meanwhile, I labor on here, doing my best for my old, wounded hospital, for my soon-to-be bereft patients, who rightly wonder who will care for them, once I finally go. I can’t give them an answer, and their sorrow is both affirming, and depressing. I will miss them, they will miss me, and the whole thing should never have happened. At this point, the windbags who administer by threat are smug in their certainty they can replace me readily, and even trade up. If they are right, then good for them, and shame on me, I guess. But I have been in the recruiting business for fifteen years here, and it has never been easy. There are a lot of toads to kiss, and not many princes. So we will see what comes. But the lesson, whichever way it goes, will be too late to prevent my departure, and the consequent loss to the community. The Spinmeisters are already out there, planting the seeds of their future defense, spinning tales of my failings and of what a lousy administrator I really was. I expect that. I am a big boy in a big, cruel world. Still it hurts.
The good news is only that the new folks seem to like me. After a little break-in period, during which I will have to be at my very best, sharp and good, and running on the edge, I am sure we will love them, and I hope they will appreciate me. There is always an element of risk there, as one bad outcome in the early going can sour things in a hurry. Even if you do everything right, if a bad thing happens before the trust is built up, you can find yourself in a bad spot. So I will have to be on the top of my game, on best behavior, on hyper-vigilant alert, and then hope that luck follows. Generally it does, as Fortune does indeed favor the prepared mind, but she gives no money back guarantees. And maybe this will be for the best for me, forcing me to get out of my comfort zone, and really bring my brain to full function. Might just make me live longer. Might just kill me. At least I will no longer be an Admenstruator.
So, if you are wondering what the hell happened to me, and why in hell would I up and move three thousand miles at age 53, and start all over again, well there you have it. The moral of the story is: In chaos, there is opportunity.