Fringeville #161: Wood and Radio

On Thursday’s doctor visit: The expected uneventful appointment. My bloodwork was as per usual: low vitamin D, low “good cholesterol.” The markers that would indicate the possibility the prostate cancer might have spread to the bones were normal. That’s a “feel-good” thing going into tomorrow’s meeting with the radiation oncologist.

Doc and I had our usual back and forth:

“I wheeze a lot, especially when I bend down to tie my shoes. Kind of like Tony in the last season of The Sopranos.”

“You’re starting to look like him too. When’s the last time you even saw your shoes without bending over?”

He ordered me to eat less, exercise more, and then perhaps one day I might see my feet again.

He then asked the usual question regarding my prostate cancer:

“Are you still taking the Cialis?”

Now here’s the thing with that. I was given a prescription for Cialis when I was sent home after the robotic prostatectomy. Besides the sexual health benefits driven home by all the commercials, it also helps blood flow and urinary health.

“I only filled the prescription once. I didn’t need it.”

His eyebrows arched up.

“I woke up at home about a week after surgery, looked down, and said: ‘Hey, I know that little soldier standing at attention!’”

If you’re a guy reading this, you know this is a normal occurrence that starts in Junior High. I think it’s just an evolutionary thing that instilled efficiency in males back in the cave days. Life was brutal and difficult. Hunting and gathering just beat men down by the end of the day. Caveman Ogg was too tired after a day afield to see to the continuation of the species. He wanted dinner and sleep. Morning wood was nature’s way of assuring humanity would survive.

If we could ask an ancient cave-dwelling male to describe his daily routine it would go something like this: 

“Ogg wake up. Make bumpy-bump. Kill wooly mammoth with spear. Eat mammoth burgers. Sleep. Repeat.”

Life was hard, right from the wake-up call.

But I digress. Back to the visit...

“Well,” said Doc, “It’s excellent you got function back so quickly. It can sometimes take a lot longer.”

“Yeah, well I still have a complaint.”

“What’s that?”

“I think the soldier was taller before the surgery.”

On a more serious note, Doc is confident that if my cancer stayed local I will do just fine. This is a positive going into tomorrow.

"...Ogg have bad day. Need more spears..."

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So the big radio news ‘round these parts is that Corbett is gone from the local airwaves.

He believes he was fired because of his opposition to Donald Trump.

I am sure he believes that, but I also know this: Over the past year, I eventually stopped listening to him. There was a fundamental change in his demeanor. He seemed bitter, and he lost his objectivity.

I have no personal axe to grind with Corbett. I only talked to him a handful of times on the air. The conversations were always cordial. In my capacity as a campaign manager and in other political matters, we also exchanged emails a few times. In every case he was polite and very professional.

Corbett didn’t suffer fools, but then, why should any of us? I do think he went off the rails a bit before, during and following the November Election. So have an awful lot of other people from both sides of the growing and massive political divide in our nation.

I wish him the best, and hope he finds himself. I say this as someone who has gone off the rails a few times as well. I didn’t agree with him very often, but he brought an alternate voice to the airwaves. Yes, he often frustrated me, but until recently he always made me think about both sides of an issue. If he can get back to that in whatever he does, he will be fine.

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