Doctors don’t give shots

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Just after I gave her the vaccination, the woman beamed and said, “Thanks so much, that was a great shot!”

“Not bad for a doctor, eh?” I replied modestly.

She laughed. “Doctor, I have to tell you something. When I was sent to your table and saw that you were a man, my heart sank. I prayed that you were a nurse, and not a doctor.” We both cracked up.

“I understand,” I said. “Doctors don’t give shots.”

It’s indeed true. I gave maybe two or three shots in medical school, and after that no more for over four decades. Until a few months ago. Then the Bainbridge Island Medical Reserve Corps asked for volunteers to give covid vaccinations.

Fortunately, my wife, Annie is a nurse. So she gave me some great pointers (get it?). She even had me practice on a poor, hapless orange. Next I watched about a dozen YouTube videos of nurses teaching how to give a shot. Curiously, every one was different; in fact, there was a lot of mutually exclusive advice. Some instructors insisted that it was vital to pull back the plunger before pushing it in; others said that was completely unnecessary. Several said you had to pinch the muscle and skin up in a tent before injection, another said to flatten the skin by pushing down and out with the fingers. One claimed that making a Z-track was essential; two others said Z-track injections were a waste of time. Do a slow, steady controlled insertion. Pop the needle in like a dart. And on and on. I concluded that no matter how I chose to vaccinate, I’d be doing it wrong.

As I drove to the Bainbridge Island Senior Center for my first shift, my stomach was in a big knot. I thought how easy all the Covid testing I’d been doing for the last few months was—after a few swabs, I felt completely comfortable with my technique, and could focus on connecting with the person I was testing. But giving shots was a new skill; I was once again an extreme non-expert. I fantasized ahead to the time when I felt as comfortable giving an injection as I did with nasal swabbing, and so many other medical procedures I’d ultimately mastered.

There’s an old saying in surgical training programs: “See one, do one, teach one.” But in the vaccination clinic this sequence was attenuated even further: The first step was entirely skipped, and I was assigned a station, given a few instructions for how to draw up the Moderna vaccine, and left alone to vaccinate. (I’d already gone over the package insert in detail, so I was quite comfortable with how to handle the vaccine.) I approached one of the other two vaccinators (a nurse, of course), introduced myself, and asked that she watch me to be sure I was giving a proper shot. Fortunately my first victim was relaxed, which helped me relax. I cleansed the deltoid with an alcohol swab, gently pinched the muscle and skin, darted the needle, and injected without withdrawing. No one yelled, jumped, or even sucked in their breath. I asked my patient how it went; she simply said, “fine, I hardly felt it.” My fellow vaccinator went silently back to her own station, and I proceeded to uneventfully give shots to thirty or so people.


Other than the small minority who looked right at the needle and talked on during the vaccination, most people tensed up in anticipation. So I started telling everyone that I’d warn them just before I gave the shot; “I don’t believe in sneak attacks,” I said. Almost everyone seemed to appreciate that. But a few demurred, saying something like, “No, please don’t warn me. I want to be surprised–I like sneak attacks.” Like with just about everything else in life, one size doesn’t fit all.

After I introduced myself, the middle-aged woman sat down, started trembling, and teared up. She was clearly in the ‘tensed up’ category. “Please don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll be as gentle as I can, and I’ll warn you just before I give the injection.” She shook her head and laughed. “I’m not nervous, doctor. I’m just so excited to finally be getting vaccinated!” After I gave her the shot, we celebrated together.

A young man came to my station wearing a sleeveless undershirt, fully revealing his deltoids–a vaccinator’s dream. His arms were covered with tattoos. I absentmindedly asked him if he was squeamish about shots. He brandished his tattoos and said, “Do I look like I mind needles?” I hooted, and apologized for asking such a silly question.

Arms with tattoos were fun to vaccinate since they provided a target. Once time, literally. The man had a bright red bullseye over his right deltoid. I told him it was an irresistible target, but when I did my measurement (three fingerbreadths below the tip of the acromion), it turned out that the tempting bullseye was too low. So I had to settle for one of the outer rings north of the target.

And speaking of tattoos, at a clinic at the Chimacum Grange, I vaccinated a man with “Loise” emblazoned diagonally across a juicy red heart. I found it very touching. I tentatively asked him, “Is Loise still in your life?” “Yup,” he replied and gestured out to the parking lot, “not only is she still in my life, she’s in my car.”


One of the wonderful things about this work was that I wasn’t being paid. And I had no quotas. So there was no time pressure; I felt free to take just as long as I needed. I explained to each person what sorts of side-effects to expect, and how to deal with them. I sensed that some people simply wanted to get the shot over with, and leave. I respected that. Others seemed eager to ask all sorts of questions about the vaccine, their health, and sometimes even to simply tell me about their work or their life.

People talked about their cancer, or kidney transplant, or a family member who was very ill. More than once I learned that a person wasn’t needle-shy because they had diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, or another condition that required them to inject themselves regularly. Then sometimes we talked about what it was like to live with such a condition. These were brief, but intense, connections.

I was surprised to see Rafael coming to my station. He had done some wonderful gardening work for us a month previously. As I went over the potential side-effects of the injection I noticed that, even with his mask on, he seemed sad. When I asked him if he had any questions, he looked down, then simply said that during the time he was working for us his mother had died of covid. So he was eager to be vaccinated. I told him how sorry I was, and sat with him a little while after giving him his shot.


The environment where the vaccinations took place was quite unusual. It’s of course rare for any sort of medical interaction to take place in a large space—the typical medical consultation takes place in a little exam room with just the doctor and patient, and maybe a nurse or medical assistant. An operating room may have more people present, but they’re just the staff and a single patient, who’s the focus of all the activity. And even in the ER, the space is limited and curtained off.

But the vaccination centers were different. At the high school gym we usually had between 9 and 12 vaccinators per shift, and over 60 volunteers directing traffic, checking credentials, registering, monitoring, entering data, and keeping track of the vaccines. Over a weekend we sometimes vaccinated more than 2,500 people. I think many who came for their vaccination enjoyed getting a shot in such a big beehive of bustle. They were taking part in an event where they and everyone around them was there for a single purpose: to decrease the spread of a virus, and the illness, disability, and sometimes even death that came with it.

It’s hard to think of another situation where so many people are gathered together for precisely the same goal. At sports stadiums, large groups of people share the same space, but they’re rooting for different teams. At a concert it’s superficially all about the music. But the audience has a rather different focus than do the performers or the paid staff. Perhaps the most similar situation I can think of to a vaccination clinic is a religious service. But even there, people attend for varied reasons—the religious leader, the regular member, and the visitor surely have somewhat different motivations and expectations. At the vaccination clinic, on the other hand, we all shared a single, specific aim, no matter whether we were there to get vaccinated or to volunteer in some capacity. It was so good to be sharing in this goal; I think everyone felt it.


Just as this was a unique environment, it was also unusual in that it was such a simple and happy one. Especially for anything that had to do with medicine and health—there were no orders for further testing, shadows seen on the x-ray, referrals to specialists, or grim diagnoses that had to be delivered. Only a birthing center comes close. The gym was filled with yelps of celebration, elbow bumps of gratitude, and lots of selfies. So far I’ve given more than 450 covid shots. This has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my medical career.

(Note: I’ve made a few inconsequential changes to these stories to ensure the anonymity of each person I mention.)

Attack of the Mama Robin

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I never planned to write a second post featuring a mother robin. Especially immediately following the previous one. But now I have no choice.

The day after I posted my last blog, during our peaceful breakfast we heard a frantic tapping. I ran to the front door, but no one was there. It occurred to me that it might have been Elijah, running late for Passover seder. Then Annie noticed that the racket was coming from the windows above the stairway to the upper floor. Who in the world was making it? Soon enough we saw that it was a bird crashing against a window, furiously attacking its own reflection.

The commotion continued throughout the morning. Finally I was called to action, equally motivated by the noise being extremely irritating and by compassion for the hapless bird. I extracted some cardboard from the recycle bin, stood on my tiptoes on the stairs, and placed it on the windowsill; the idea was to quash the ornithological reflections. The tapping stopped for about ten minutes. Then it began again at full blast. So I went out on the little second story deck with tape and newspapers, covering the windows as far as I could reach. There was blissful quiet for about half an hour.

Then the racket resumed–the bird was charging at various bits of the windows that weren’t covered. What the heck was going on? We got a good look at the bird, and did a search–the attacker was a female robin. Could it possibly be the same one who built the nest and hatched the three babies last spring? Maybe she’d just built a new nest and was defending it against the competition, who unfortunately happened to be a mirror image of herself.

As dusk descended, the assaults mercifully trailed off. But the next morning the persistent tapping and crashing was back. I put up more cardboard and more newspapers, but because the far reaches of the window weren’t accessible, some of the glass remained bare. These gaps seemed to be enough to present the mama robin with a self-image to joust with. Annie went out on the upper deck and joined the fray, clapping her hands, stomping, and yelling, “silly bird—stop it!” I heartily concurred.

On the third day I went out the front door, a level below the windows that were under siege. There was a wobbly line of white poop written across the deck, tracing the blitz path from the katsura tree, which had apparently served as an observation post, to the windows. During the course of the day the line filled in, documenting the cumulative hours spent in theoretical nest defense.

Around the fourth day I noticed with great distress that the thickening white line was sprinkled with red dots—apparently the mama bird had been such an assiduous attacker that she’d injured her beak. That afternoon things were mercifully still. But with a start I realized that this wasn’t merciful at all–perhaps it was so quiet because the robin had pecked herself to death. We were quite saddened , and wondered what else we could have done to prevent her suicide.

Later in the afternoon, while playing Catch the Speeders with my young grandson, I looked up from the driveway and saw a nest nestled in the grapevine which twisted above the outer garage door. Aha! Just as I suspected, the mama robin had indeed been protecting her inauspiciously placed home from a simulacrum of herself.

The next day the tapping began again. I was happy that the mama robin wasn’t dead, and sad that her senseless activity had resumed. It was time to get aggressive. Standing on the upper deck, I reached over to the outer window as far as I dared. I taped up rows of curling, shiny gold ribbons. I attached yet more cardboard. I hung CDs all over the windows. It looked like we’d put up decorations for our grandson’s birthday party.

But still, the mama bird remained in attack mode. Her flapping wings set the sparkly golden ribbons aflutter and made the CDs shimmy, spraying their rainbow patterns out over the world. I went out on the lower deck and peered down at the grape vines above the garage door to see if eggs had appeared. But all I saw were a few dried leaves in the bottom of the nest. Then I examined the nest more closely. It was a perfectly constructed bowl—twigs and moss were intricately intertwined. It was a symmetrical, tidy, and gorgeous creation. Hmm. Maybe a creature that could build such a masterpiece wasn’t so silly after all.



It occurs to me that the same brain that made the robin endlessly strike out at her doppelgänger also directed her to produce an elegant nest that would have been (or, who knows, still might be) perfectly designed to hold her precious eggs. And even if she should not lay eggs this season, or even worse, perishes from her endless dueling with her own image, maybe her activity isn’t so irrational. The same wiring that led her to mount her fruitless multi-day offensive could well have, in ten of her relatives, led to their successfully defending their broods from threats, resulting in the production of twenty or thirty further members of the species. After all, this isn’t about the survival of the individual, but the survival of the species. And down through the centuries this behavior has clearly served her ancestor mama robins well—the proof is that she is here today to protect her nest.

Can we really claim that we humans are more evolved than our bird-brained buddies? We’re perhaps the world’s most expert species in persisting in pointless behavior: We continue to fight wars, even when there’s no chance of victory. We continue to stay in destructive relationships, even when it’s clear there’s no future. We continue to smoke cigarettes, take drugs, drink excessive alcohol, and eat poorly even though we know full well that doing so is at least as damaging as assaulting our reflections.

And alas, with rare exceptions, trying to get our leaders to end a war, or convincing a friend to leave a destructive relationship, or talking someone out of harmful activity is as likely to succeed as hanging sparkly ribbons to stop the mama bird from her self-attacks.

At the risk of ruffling some feathers, I suggest that the mama robin may in some ways actually be a rung or two above us on the evolutionary ladder. At least her misguided actions have utility: they clearly enhance the survival of the species, even if not her own. But it’s hard to see how some our quite irrational human behaviors improve the chances of the continuation of the human race.

The tapping has stopped. The perfect nest remains empty. But the sound of birdsong is everywhere.

What Does the Mama Bird See?

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The trees are budding out. Spring is here. This reminds me that while pruning the wisteria last spring, I noticed a beautiful robin’s nest tucked between several twisting vines. I brought the ladder closer and climbed up to see three perfect eggs (robin’s egg blue, as it happened). In retrospect, I realized I’d heard a bird vigorously tweeting as I was trimming; at the time I’d thought how nice it was to hear such sweet birdsong. But there was nothing sweet about it–I was oblivious to the distress the frantic mother bird had been communicating.

Over the next few days I often forgot about the nest, and mindlessly clomped across the deck to check the rain gauge or turn on the hose. The commotion I generated caused the poor mama to flee in panic and sing her song of fear. And no matter how I tried to tell her that I meant no harm, she wasn’t reassured.

As time passed, I more consistently remembered the nest. I gave it a wide berth and tried to be quieter; the bird stopped fleeing when I approached. Still, she remained on guard: her alert beak and bright eyes stuck out of the nest in one direction, her tail in the other. But she stayed on her eggs. It gave me pleasure to know that she now trusted—or at least tolerated—my presence enough not to take flight.

As she lay atop her three babies-to-be, immobile but wary, it occurred to me how different her perceptions were from mine. What did she see as she looked out from her nest? Perhaps she classified the immediate world into: 1) food source, 2) safe shelter, and 3) potential threat. Moreover, she was almost certainly multilingual to all the bird chatter around us, effortlessly understanding the messages encoded in the raucous cawing of the crows, the scratchy call of the Steller’s Jay, and the peeping of the flicker. At the same time, she was undoubtedly oblivious to things in her vicinity that were important to me: that a spot on the deck had been missed when it was repainted, that the gutters needed to be cleaned out, and that the lawn was in desperate need of mowing.

When I stood quietly beneath her nest, listening for signs that the baby birds had hatched, the mama robin and I were occupying the same physical space. But the reality mapped onto my human brain looks nothing like the one mapped onto her bird brain. Each map served us well, but there was probably only tangential overlap.

Finally, the hatchlings emerged. They stuck their beaks up to the sky, opening and closing them like miniature pruning shears, in anticipation of the early worm. And speaking of baby birds, it occurs to me that not only do the mama robin and I see the world through vastly different eyes, but a baby robin’s Map of the World is almost certainly quite different from that of her mama’s. For example, the mama food map prominently identifies the most fertile worming grounds; the baby’s centers on the mama’s loaded beak. The mama is constantly vigilant for signs of danger; the baby probably doesn’t even have danger-detecting neurons wired up yet.

And, of course, this is just as true for humans as for birds. Like baby birds, when my kids were small, they saw the world radically differently than I did. And in some ways, they still do. And, come to think of it, so does every person in the world. A farmer looks up at the sky and knows he needs to harvest the wheat right away; an artist looks at the same sky and thinks how lovely the clouds with their pretty gray edges are. A radiologist sees clear evidence of congestive heart failure on the chest x-ray; her office manager looks at it and sees blurry shadows. One person walks in the forest and is struck by the unusual comingling of different species of trees; another is overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creation.

We are each equipped with a unique map of the world, along with rules for how to navigate it. Being mindful of these differences may help us to be more generous to others for the things they say and the decisions they make. We are quite aware of and make allowances for the difference in perceptions between us and our feathered friends; seems like it’s not a stretch to do so for our fellow humans as well.

The Banana Man

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The Banana Man was one of the few completely positive memories I’ve retained from childhood. I should never have tried to track him down.

When I was seven, a sacred family tradition was that every Saturday at noon we’d gather in front of our little black and white TV. That’s when The Sealtest Big Top came on. It was a kid’s circus show, sponsored, not surprisingly, by the Sealtest Dairy. We snuggled together on the sofa to eat my mother’s fabulous grilled cheese sandwiches, always including a big slice of tomato which burrowed into the melted cheese. For drinks we had another of my mother’s specialties: chocolate sodas. They were made with seltzer water, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, and milk (presumably Sealtest). After the chocolate and milk were stirred into the syrup, a foamy, spritzy head formed at the top, giving a pleasant tickle to the nose as we drank it.

The ad-heavy Sealtest Big Top featured numerous regulars, including “Sealtest Dan, The Muscle Man”. Sealtest Dan, as I just learned, was Dan Lurie, a runner up for Mr. America in the mid-1940’s. He won the Most Muscular Man trophy several years in a row. He was outfitted in a black cape, sandals, and faux leopard skin bikini trunks. In a typical act, Sealtest Dan would heft a barbell fitted with two hundred-plus pounds of weights. After he finished his reps, a girl about my age would rush onto the stage and offer him a tall glass of milk (you can guess the brand). Simultaneously, Jack Sterling, the snappy ringmaster, averred that Sealtest milk grew big muscles and strong bones; after seeing Dan press that barbell in his leopard skin bikini trunks, there could be little doubt that this was true. Then the girl stood on her tiptoes to palpate Dan’s formidable biceps, while exaggeratedly mouthing the word, “WOW!” In reply, Dan modestly grinned. The segment ended with ringmaster Jack saying, “Extra nutritious and extra delicious! Get the best, get Sealtest.” Those weren’t the days of subtle messaging.

Despite the allure of Sealtest Dan, to me the most memorable act was The Banana Man. (He was not referred to as The Sealtest Banana Man. This was probably because bananas were not a dairy product, and thus not marketed by Sealtest). The Banana Man shuffled onto the stage wearing a baggy tuxedo jacket that went down to his knees, and a bright red wig that looked like a mop head that had been soaked in some sort of carmine dye. He smiled wanly at the live audience, perfunctorily bowed, and began his magic.

While humming to himself in a buzzy falsetto, The Banana Man reached into his tux and began extracting an extraordinary variety of objects: musical instruments, a huge magnet, watermelons, an enormous comb and mirror set, a music stand, a waste basket, a giant hand, and a bottle of milk (by now, you can probably deduce the brand). Each time something emerged from the interior of his tux he brandished it aloft, and in that same irritating but alluring falsetto said “Ooh!”, or “Wow!” The latter, of course, echoed the little girl’s reaction to Sealtest Dan’s biceps, and seemed like a good summary of the entire spectacle of The Sealtest Big Top. Of all the objects The Banana Man produced, the most dazzling was bunch, after bunch, after bunch of bananas. In my seven-year-old mind, which I carried to adulthood until I was very recently disabused of this belief (more on that soon), these were full, heavy bunches of real bananas. How he did it was never a question; it was magic, after all. The point is that he did, and his feat was both wonderful and hilarious. I think I shared his professed amazement as each bunch came forth, silently mouthing his falsetto “Ooh’s” along with him.

The spectacular extractions went on and on until the contents of the tux filled four miniature train cars, which had been set up on the stage to receive them. Wow! What a show–both amazing, and roll-on-the-floor funny. During my entire childhood I rarely felt closer to my family as we all ate those grilled cheese sandwiches, washed them down with chocolate sodas, and laughed uproariously at The Banana Man.



A week or so ago, a bunch of bananas in the fruit basket for some reason triggered thoughts of The Banana Man. Hmm, it occurred to me, I could Google him! Perhaps I could find out who he really was. And maybe even see one of his performances on YouTube. Unfortunately, Google came through, loud and clear…

I learned that there were actually two Banana Men. The original was Adolph Proper, an Austrian who emigrated to the US, reinvented himself as “A. Robbins,” and invented the persona of The Banana Man. Before a performance, his tux jacket was intricately loaded with 60 pounds of stuff, which took up to 2 ½ hours to prepare. Alas, Adolph Proper died in 1950. But someone named Sam Levine stepped up to the plate. He bought Proper’s entire wardrobe, equipment, and shtick, and continued the Banana Man act in venues including Captain Kangaroo and The Ed Sullivan Show.

After learning the identity of The Banana Man—or, more correctly I guess, The Banana Men—I found a video of one of their performances. This one, on Captain Kangaroo, was by Banana Man II, Sam Levine. He was the same Banana Man I saw on The Sealtest Big Top. And, WOW, was it depressing! I hadn’t remembered that he looked so sad and disheveled. I hadn’t remembered how cheap and tawdry all the things were that he pulled out of his pathetic tux jacket. And most distressing of all, I had no idea that the 300 bananas he produced were tacky imitations. Not only weren’t they real bunches of bananas, they weren’t even fake bunches–they appeared to be hanging from a string, like fish caught on a line of hooks. And they certainly weren’t hefty, rich yellow fruits—they were merely cores of springs covered with pale yellow cloth which Adoph Proper had fashioned lovingly by hand. To pack the tux, the Banana Men compressed the springs, then jammed the flattened fruits into various pockets. Then, as they were pulled out during a performance, the springs sprung, turning the cloth coins into very rough simulacra of real bananas. So much for the magic! Even at the tender age of seven, how could I have been so fooled? Or was I? Maybe I appreciated the ruse, but was happy to suspend my disbelief to enjoy The Banana Man with my family.


As Thomas Wolfe famously said, You Can’t Go Home Again. That’s because when you do, what you find will not be what you remember. And, quite possibly, what you find will be worse. Old Tom sure nailed my Banana Man memories! Alas, after going home again, I now carry two parallel reels in my head: The first one is the Banana Man of my youth, pulling huge bunches of real bananas out of his tux jacket, while my family and I howl in amazement and delight. The second reel is the Banana Man of my adulthood—a bit tattered and worn, awkwardly pulling fake objects only tangentially related to bunches of real bananas out of that same tux. Perhaps these two reels are two different versions of the reality of the Banana Man–mutually exclusive, but both still true. In any case, the more recent reel still nags at me.

I wonder if The Banana Man is a cautionary tale. For example, lately—probably triggered by the pandemic—I’ve been involved in a flurry of Zoom convocations with old high school buddies. Most of us haven’t been in touch for decades. Interestingly, and to my mild distress, we almost exclusively reminisce about ye olde high school days rather than discuss what everyone is doing now. And once again, some of my long-held memories of those days are being challenged. I wonder if we would do better to leave the past fallow, keeping the old memories, right or wrong, intact.

Maybe. But it could be that some of our pleasant memories of yesteryear are actually accurate, and could be made even more vivid by collective recollection. That is, maybe old memories don’t always go in the Banana Man direction. For example, during one of those Zoom chats some of my high school buddies fondly recalled a funny high school stunt of mine that I had completely forgotten about. That recollection made me feel good, and connected. So maybe revisiting old memories isn’t all bad. Maybe you actually can go home again, at least once in a while. I’ll think about that, perhaps while making a grilled cheese sandwich. With a fresh tomato slice, of course, and a chocolate soda on the side.

Different Cultures, Different Truths

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“I saw Khun Ken eating like an animal!” Sukhorn said with a shy, self-conscious smile. Sukhorn was my lab tech at the Suan Dok hospital in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I was spending a year researching the effects of pediatric malnutrition. It was Monday morning, and I’d just arrived at work. Her statement, needless to say, was puzzling.

“Sukhorn, what do you mean?” She grinned, and demurely looked down. Finally she said, “Khun Ken bought some curry on the street this weekend. And he was walking along the sidewalk eating it. Just like an animal!” I still didn’t get it, and she didn’t seem to want to talk further. So I just shrugged, and attended to my limulus assays.

That afternoon I told Panja Kulapongs, a wonderful pediatric hematologist/oncologist who did most of his training in the US, about this interchange. He started laughing, then explained that in Thai culture the proper thing to do after buying street food is to eat it while squatting down on the sidewalk near the vendor. Eating while walking is what animals do—very tacky, and impolite. I was abashed to realize I was seen doing something so crude, especially since as one of the few westerners in Chiang Mai at the time I really stood out.

Even decades later, this has stuck with me—to this day I’m self-conscious about eating an ice cream cone while walking down the street. And when I see people strolling along the sidewalk munching on a pizza slice or a hot dog, my initial reaction is to think how uncouth they are.

About halfway through my time in Thailand, our research unit organized what I guess would be called a “fun run” to raise money for a pediatric charity. All suited up and ready to go, Panja approached me. “Please remember, Ken” he said, “don’t run your hardest. You want to leave room for doing better the next time.” Then he added, “And most important, don’t come in first. In fact, try not to distinguish yourself in any way.” I completed the run in safe anonymity, firmly in the middle of the pack.

One of the perks of working at the Anemia and Malnutrition Research Centre was that I was entitled to rent a car at a whopping discount. What I got was a cute little beige VW bug that cost me a dollar a day. (This was truly Dollar Rent-a-Car!). Even my modest vehicle turned heads in Chiang Mai, among the multitude of scooters, samlors and tuk-tuks.

Here in The Far East, driving was somewhat reminiscent of being in The Wild West. At the time, the nearest traffic light was probably in Bangkok, 700 km to the south. Even stop signs were sparse in Chiang Mai, and the few that existed seemed more for decoration than instruction. So when driving among all the bicycles and non-automobile motor vehicles, it was important to be hyperalert.

One day I was heading down the main street, going with the flow at about 20 miles per hour. I ended up behind a samlor, a three-wheeled peddled vehicle that carries a passenger or two for short distances. As I very slowly passed the samlor, it was apparent that the driver was staring at me. We locked eyes. Then, suddenly, he jerked his handlebars so that the side of his samlor smacked into the side of my car. We both pulled over. He quickly checked out both vehicles, then peddled off into the traffic. I saw only a few tiny scratches on the passenger front door, so I shrugged and drove on.

Two days later Boonsri, the chief secretary at the research centre, called me into her office. To my surprise, standing next to her desk was the samlor driver, a piece of paper in hand. Boonsri explained that this was a bill for the repair of his samlor, which he was presenting to me for payment. “What!” I yelled more than asked. I explained to Boonsri that the guy deliberately turned into my car, no question about it. It was clearly his fault. Boonsri smiled patiently. “Khun Ken,” she said, “that’s not the point. The point is that your vehicle is worth more than this man’s. So you are responsible for paying the damage”. “But”, I sputtered, “he intentionally ran into me! It was his fault!” “Fault is not relevant, Khun Ken”, she said. “Your VW is worth more than his samlor. So, you pay. It’s quite simple”. She just smiled and shook her head at my failure to grasp the obvious.

I settled down, and reflected. It was, I guess, sort of like no-fault insurance. Or a social welfare scheme, where the richer look after the poorer, evening things up a bit. Actually, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The Anemia and Malnutrition Research Centre reimbursed the samlor driver. As I unpacked this astounding occurrence, it occurred to me that his samlor probably had some preexisting mechanical problem, and the driver opportunistically bumped into my VW to fund the repair. Well, more power to him; with his samlor in tip top shape, I hoped his business would increase. And maybe someday he would save up enough to buy a VW. And then help another samlor driver pay his bills.



The well-worn mantra says that “we’re all alike under the skin.” And we joyfully sing, “It’s a small world after all; there’s so much that we share.” I suppose that’s all true, and I celebrate my common humanity with every other person on the planet. But, in fact, we’re not all the same, and there certainly are things we don’t share. If I had tried to convince Sukhorn that it was perfectly civilized to eat while walking down the sidewalk, she would have been as apt to agree as I would if she told me it was quite polite to loudly hock up and spit into a bowl during a meal (which, at least when I lived there, the Thais frequently did).

So how do I square the notion that we’re all alike under the skin with the obvious fact that there are profound cultural differences? Actually, I think that keeping these disparate truths in mind can be quite helpful when interacting with others. This is especially true when navigating the profound political and religious differences we encounter daily. We ought to respect everyone, because we do, of course, share a common humanity. But because some views are as ingrained and unshakable as the belief that walking while eating is what only animals do, it’s simply not useful to try to change them. If I mentally superimpose an image of Sukhorn or Panja or Boonsri over the face of the person I’m talking to, maybe I can be less critical of opinions of theirs that I find distasteful. And maybe I’ll feel less compelled to, fruitlessly, try to change them.

So here’s what I hope to remember to do: If I’m engaged with another person with whom I have a serious difference of opinion, rather than thinking of them as a stubborn and ignorant American, perhaps I should think of them as from a vastly different culture. Maybe this will allow me to feel more comfortable in accepting that some of their beliefs, though quite different than mine, are simply part of who they are. And then I can focus on the commonality we do share, like Sukorn’s great sense of humor, Panja’s caring and support, and Boonsri’s patience and tact.

The Knurled World

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Lately, I’ve been seeing knurls everywhere. You know, those vertical ridges on bottle tops, toothpaste caps, and lids. At first I didn’t even know what they were called. But out of a dark corner of some unidentified gyrus of my cerebral cortex, I heard a shy, tentative peep say ‘knerl,’ or something like that. I of course Googled it, and was eventually led to “knurl,” which was defined as “a small projecting knob or ridge, especially in a series around the edge of something.” Bingo, I found it! I then spent (or, you might well argue, wasted) many hours scouring the web for “knurl” and “knurling.” Thus, I was introduced to the knurled world.

As the first article I read put it, “Knurling can enhance the aesthetics of a product by introducing an attractive pattern to its surface. Most people will agree that textured finishes are more attractive than smooth finishes.” Already my mind was spinning! Is it really true that most people agree that textured finishes are more attractive than smooth surfaces? That never occurred to me. Though, since no references were cited, perhaps the knurled enhancement of aesthetics is obvious–especially to anyone who knows their knurls. And certainly to anyone who sells knurling machines, of which, as I soon found out, there are many.

The article went on, “Aside from aesthetics, though, there are practical reasons for manufacturing companies to perform knurling. Products that require gripping, such as hand tools, are often knurled to improve their performance and usability…Knurling protects against hand slippage by creating a textured pattern that’s easier to grip.” I found that statement easier to accept than the aesthetics one. But, curiously, though the learned articles as well as the purveyors of knurling machines all state that knurled surfaces are easier to grip than smooth ones, not a single one explains why this is so.

All I could come up with was this: when we grip a knurled surface, the skin of our fingers, along with the various layers of underlying tissue, press into the spaces between the raised portions of the knurl. Then, when we squeeze, we’re applying lateral pressure to the sides of the knurled valleys. That is, we’re pressing our flesh against the adjacent ridges. This provides additional force over what we could apply by gripping a smooth (and less aesthetically pleasing) surface.

Here’s a little thought experiment which, at least to me, proves the importance of our finger tissues getting down into the grooves: Pretend that the skin overlying our fingers is totally smooth and totally non-pliable, like, for example, the metal hand of a robot. If R2-D2 applied the same amount of squeezing force to the toothpaste cap as we do with our fingers, imagine how much harder it would be for him to open it—his robotic digits would likely just slide over the knurling without getting a good grip. And if his smooth fingers squeezed it tightly enough to unscrew it, the cap would run the risk of cracking. I guess it’s a good thing that R2-D2 has no teeth to brush!

When you think about it—or at least when the author of the Wikipedia “Knurling” article thinks about it–knurls are everywhere: the author cites the knurling found on tool handles, mechanical pencils, barbell bars, pistol grips, control knobs, darts grips, surgical instruments, and even the foot pegs of BMX bicycles. And it doesn’t stop there: consider, for example, the “knurled nut,” found so commonly on small diameter bolts, electronic components, musical instruments, and automobiles, to name a few. I suspect that it would be extremely difficult to get through even a single day without interacting with multiple examples of knurling.

So where, you are almost certainly wondering by now, did the word “knurl” come from? Well, that’s easy. Once again, Wikipedia to the rescue: “The terms knurl and knurled are from an earlier knur ‘knot in wood’ and the diminutive -le, from Middle English knaur or knarre ‘knot in wood; twisted rock; crag’. This descends from Old English cnearra but the vowel in Middle English may have been influenced by Old Norse knǫrr ‘merchant ship’ which was known as cnearr in Old English.” You may protest that this is a little abstruse. But not so fast—when you press your fingers against the knurling on the toothpaste cap as you brush your teeth in the morning, simply think of ‘knot in wood’ while visualizing a Norse merchant ship; if you do so you’ll never forget the derivation.

A study of knurls naturally leads to the world of knurling machines. Among other patterns, it turns out that knurling machines can produce “annular rings”, “linear knurls”, “rolled knurls”, and “diamond knurls”, as well as the quotidian “straight knurls”. After explaining the basics of knurling machines, an online article goes on to tackle a common misconception: “A popular myth is that rolled knurls are somewhat more complicated to design than cut knurls because the outer diameter of the workpiece must be chosen to allow the roller to roll an integral number of patterns around the workpiece; in practice if the knurl is applied positively, it will engage with its own impression and create a proper knurl on any diameter of work.” I feel fortunate that I’ve been disabused of my belief in the popular myth of the difficulty of designing rolled knurls which, I must confess, I shared.

As is true in other manufacturing fields, purveyors of knurling machines are eager to be green as well as to reduce costs. One site selling knurling machines acknowledges these considerations by suggesting that “specifiers and procurement agents can shave costs by playing with the closure design, process, or grade of material.” Specifically, “knurl reduction” is advocated. Here’s what they suggest: “You can reduce the amount of material in knurls by increasing the distance between the knurls, reducing the width of knurls or by having different patterns—like each alternate knurl can be cut in size by half. Typically, the weight contribution of knurls in the gross weight of a cap is 20% of the total weight. Even a 50% decrease in this would cut the material weight of cap by 10%.” Sure sounds to me like knurl reduction is the way to go!

In the competitive world of knurling machines, it appears that Shandong Lipeng Co, Ltd is at the top of the heap. Their specialty is manufacturing the knurling machines that produce knurled bottle caps. Their machines can crank out an astounding “30,000pcs/8h.” That’s a lot of knurling going on! It’s clear that Lipeng takes its mission seriously—their website tag line is, “Bottle cap is small, but it is still an art work~.” I guess this is another example of knurlers’ belief that their products have aesthetic value–I’ll certainly try to look at the next knurled bottle cap I encounter as the work of art it surely is.

But there’s more. The Shandong site continues, “Shandong Lipeng Co., Ltd has been carrying the sacred mission to create a leading brand in bottle cap line around the worldwide. Keeping persueing perfect & establishing the uncopied central competitive power to enjoy the reasult as small pieces, huge market. We have the enrich facilities for production and we also take granted to our expert R&D center…” Perhaps their English isn’t expert (though it’s a heck of a lot better than my Mandarin), but their comprehensive knowledge of–and passion for–knurling clearly is! It’s humbling to appreciate the expertise, zeal, and sense of mission that the knurling community brings to its craft. Perhaps it’s a model for us all, no matter what our work.



In addition to a much more profound knowledge of the field, my deep dive into knurls and knurling has shown me how oblivious we can be to what’s everywhere around us. I marvel at how many features of our world, in addition to knurls, that we see but aren’t conscious of. Among the things I’ll try to be more aware of are: the multitude of knobs and handles that we use in the course of a day, the ubiquity of right angles in objects constructed by humans (and their virtual absence in nature), the pervasiveness of some shade of the color green just about anywhere you look, and the interaction of all the ambient sounds that, if we really listen, can be heard at one time. And, who knows, maybe even the immanence of God.

Filling in the Blanks

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It was uncomfortably intimate, almost like a striptease. I was a member of a team of volunteers doing covid testing in central Washington. Our focus was on two groups: the Yakima Nation tribe, and migrant fruit pickers, both of whom had a high prevalence of covid-19. Though I’d worked with my teammates for almost a week, I didn’t really know what any of them looked like. This was because during testing we were swathed in PPE—hats, masks, face shields, gloves, gowns. Even at the motel where we were staying (in separate rooms, of course), we always wore masks. Meals were ordered in, and delivered to the meeting room. Then we grabbed our bag, and scurried off to our rooms to eat.

Thus, despite working closely with this group, I’d only seen glimpses of the top thirds of their faces. But on this day that changed. Our morning testing site was in the reservation town of White Swan, and our afternoon site wasn’t too far from there. So it didn’t make sense to go all the way back to our motel for lunch. We looked for the taco truck we’d seen in the nearby town of Wapato the previous day, but it wasn’t there. So we had no choice but to eat at the only restaurant that was open.

It felt strange to walk into a restaurant–the first one I’d set foot in in many months–and stranger still to sit at a table so close to other people. Instinctively, we spread out as far as possible. The polite, properly masked server passed out menus, and we ordered through our N-95s. Conversation was attenuated as we waited for our food. Eventually our meals arrived, and slowly my teammates took off their masks. To my utter surprise, the intimacy of this reveal made me feel quite uneasy; it was hard to look anyone straight in the eye. I think I was the last person to un-mask.

Everyone’s face seemed so large, and so bare. But what struck me most was how different my teammates looked than I’d imagined. Carmen’s chin was much sharper, and her mouth smaller. George, it turned out, was Japanese! With his mask, hat, and face shield in place, I had barely been able to see his face at all. And to my surprise, Roscoe had a beard, and a nose that was more prominent than the one I’d placed beneath his mask. I ate my burrito while stealing glances at these exposed, foreign faces, marveling at how different these people looked than the ones I’d been working with all week.



The Wapato restaurant reveal was unsettling. It made me realize that when we interact with others we’re engaged in a constant process of filling in the blanks. I’m not just talking about just filling in the physical blanks–though we certainly may be surprised at the beach when we see a friend or a relative in a bathing suit for the first time! What I mean is this: When we meet someone new, I think that we almost immediately begin to make inferences about them. Even before they open their mouths, we study how they’re dressed, their hairstyle, their presumed ethnicity, and even the way they move. Based on an unconscious integration of all these observations, we make assumptions about their nationality, religion, politics, and education. And after we hear them speak, we make additional conjectures based on their accent and vocabulary. For example, after only a few minutes of interaction with a stranger we may unconsciously peg her as a not particularly well-educated Southerner. This leads to a guess that she probably works in a menial job, and is politically conservative. Then, after a bit more conversation, aren’t we surprised to learn that she’s an engineer for Westinghouse, and a strong supporter of Black Lives Matter! Or, if our initial impression leads us to believe that someone we’ve just met is urban, educated, and well-travelled we may conclude that if he has any spiritual aspirations, he’s a Unitarian at best. But on further conversation, it turns out that he’s a deacon in his Southern Baptist congregation. Only when more of who they really are is revealed do we realize that we had presumptuously—and erroneously–filled in the blanks.

Like watching Bob Ross paint a picture, this fill-in-the-blanks process is dynamic. Sometimes we correctly predict where his trees will go, and that there will be an idyllic stream flowing towards us at the bottom of the painting. But just as often we’re wrong—the trees were on the other side of the mountain, and where we thought a stream would be was simply a valley floor, bursting with lovely spring flowers. So maybe it’s better just to watch Bob paint, and not anticipate what he’s going to put where.

So after the sobering experience of the restaurant reveal, when I meet someone new, I pledge to avoid prematurely filling in the blanks. Rather, I’ll try to keep an open mind, and expect to learn more as I get to know them. I won’t make Carmen’s chin round before I know that it’s actually sharp, or decide whether Roscoe is clean shaven or has a beard. I’ll try just to be sensitive and curious, and with time hope to learn more about who they really are.

Life’s Detritus

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I finally acceded to Annie’s gentle but insistent requests to clear out our rat’s nest of a garage. It had been sinking into a state of increasing dissolution for years—what was the hurry? But to honor her, I grudgingly agreed.

Among the first atrocities to surface was a black plastic bag containing something substantial. With apprehension, I undid the red ties. Oh no! It was brim full of boxes of 35 mm slide carousels. We’d recently finished the painful process of reviewing about two thousand slides, and the last thing I wanted was a reprise. It had been easy to chuck those that were out of focus, the beautiful but entirely generic flowers, and images of vacation sunsets and beach houses lacking any human beings. Harder was deciding what to do with the many unmemorable slides of people we knew but weren’t particularly close to: With some ambivalence, into the wastebasket went my great uncle holding an unidentified kid in some sort of stranglehold, our sweet neighbor and her blurry pet bunny, and the kids down the street self-consciously posing with those maple seed “helicopters” stuck to their noses. Hardest of all was dealing with the precious but long-gone pets, gala holiday dinners, and shots of family, many of which were ill-composed, unflattering, or redundant. We faced endless fraught decisions as to which images should be irrevocably destroyed, and which should be tediously labeled, packed up, and sent off for digitization.

I thought we were finally done with that grueling process. But now I was confronted with a bag bulging with—count ‘em–eight more carousels. Even if these were the 80-slide models rather than the super-sized 140-slide versions, we were facing the possibility of over 600 more images to sort through! My heart sank. And I felt cross with Annie for goading me to clean up the garage in the first place.

Gingerly, I opened the first box. Yahoo—the carousel was empty! That was at least one tray of slides I wouldn’t have to deal with. Then came the next box—bingo! It too contained an empty carousel. I took a breath, and then opened the third. Same thing: empty. Then with increasing confidence, I opened the rest of the boxes. Every carousel in every box was completely devoid of slides; hallelujah!

But after the 35 mm dust settled, I thought about it: Why was I so pleased that there were no further beautiful images, or family photos, or travel snapshots, each of which could evoke precious memories? Wouldn’t it have been a gift to unexpectedly have yet more photographs to review and reminisce over? And then digitize the most meaningful ones for posterity?

Well, maybe. But on the other hand, I thought, even if there had been slides in the carousels, it would have been tempting to avoid the pain of dealing with these filmy little devils by chucking them directly into the trash. Tempting, but somehow criminal. I would surely have felt an obligation to review and process any new slides that turned up. But to take another step back, maybe I should have binned the entire bag without even opening it. I couldn’t have felt a sense of loss if I didn’t know what I was losing.


While writing this post and thinking about what to do with accumulated stuff that I didn’t want to deal with, I heard a gentle but nagging growl coming from the bookcase in my office. It emanated from a thick stack of yellow, crumbling newspapers that sat on the bottom shelf. I’ve been collecting them for over half a century. To test my recent musings, I toyed with the idea of tossing them all, sight unseen, as my family has more than twice suggested. But rather than doing the sensible thing, I irresistibly started flipping through the ancient stack. I knew that I had saved a Washington Post from the day Kennedy was assassinated, but had no idea what else was there.

What a revelation it turned out to be! After going through the whole pile, I didn’t find that precious Kennedy assassination headline that perhaps I only imagined I’d saved. What I did find was quite a mixture: “JAPS BOMB U.S.” was the blaring (and cringeworthy) headline from the Greensboro, N.C. Daily News from December 7, 1941. That was even before my time—I have no idea how it made its journey from Greensboro to the bottom shelf of one of my office bookcases. Then was “Mr. Nixon resigns as President” from The London Times (“price six pence”) from August 9, 1974, followed by “Carter Winner,” from the Nov 3, 1976 Oregonian, which preceded “Regan sweeps vote,” from November 5, 1980. Here comes “Eruption decapitates St Helens; at least 9 die,” from the May 19th, 1980 Oregonian. There were historic headlines from the Raleigh News and Observer, about the space shuttle explosion and the demise of the Soviet Union. Then I came to the April 3, 1987 Washington Post: “$87.5 Billion Highway Bill Enacted over Regan’s Veto.” Huh? How did that get in the pile? Or, for that matter, the Nov 29, 1999 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “WTO is peaceful, even polite.” I guess at the time this must have been big news, but was it worth saving for posterity? Or maybe some of these papers were meant to be recycled, but were accidently diverted to the bottom shelf, where they’ve moldered for decades.

Now, once again, I find myself faced with a slide-like decision: I can cheerfully recycle most of them, and ruefully shake my head that I’d kept them to yellow and rot and take up space in my bookcase for so many years. But what about the really historic ones, like the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or the Mt St Helens eruption? Well, I took a deep breath, and chucked them all into oblivion. (If you’d like any of them, please let me know right away, before I put the recycle bin out in the driveway.) Yahoo, I did it–there’s now a lovely empty space on my bookcase shelf! Long may it remain bare.

With that unexpected and cathartic newspaper cleanout, I return to thoughts of slides. I realize that the newspaper and slide situations are a bit different—though each is historic, the newspapers document public events known to all, whereas the slides are of interest only for me and my family. Online I can easily find newspaper headlines about WWII, but not photographs of my father’s 80th birthday party.

So I’m back to thinking that maybe it’s not unreasonable to curate family slides, no matter how painful. But where does that lead? Say we carefully sort through them, chuck most, and have the survivors digitized. Then I store the files on my hard drive under “photos/family.” Excellent. But then what? Well, maybe when the pandemic is over, and our daughters and their families come over we’ll have a slide show. Some memories will be resurrected and discussed, probably with disagreements about who else was there, or what we ate at that special dinner at the beach. Then someone’s cell phone rings, and someone grabs a magazine and starts reading an article. And things sort of break up before all 476 slides were projected. Then what?

The next time everyone is over, after lunch I weakly suggest that we watch the rest of the slides. There’s a notable lack of enthusiasm, though the polite son-in-law manages to mumble, “sounds great!” But the grandkids have run outside to throw a football, Annie and one of the daughters are doing the dishes, and someone else’s cell rings again. Any slide momentum is thus lost, and we never get around to seeing them.

Then the digitized photographs lie fallow in the hard drive for years, until the computer tells us that we’re running out of disk space. It advises the removal of unimportant files. Or until we pass on and our kids–or maybe grandkids–have to deal with gigabytes of slides, scanned diaries, and other life detritus. But at least the electronic clutter doesn’t take up any space in the garage, doesn’t get dusty, and is quite easily ignored. Or can be simply deleted, without anyone looking to see the contents.

Uniform Authority

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The official gave me a pen from the “clean pens” container, which sat right next to the one labelled “used pens.” Then he took a clipboard that had just been handed to him by another patron, slapped a form on it, and offered it to me. That got my back up. “Excuse me,” I said, less gently than I’d intended, “why do you sanitize the pens, but give me a clipboard that was just touched by someone else?” He looked surprised and said, “They’re different.” “Really?” I said, “Why would a pen be a fomite, but not a clipboard? If anything, the clipboard has more surface area for virus transmission.” “I don’t want to go there!” he said defensively, “but if you insist…” he roughly rubbed down the clipboard with a sanitizing wipe, put the form back on it, and shoved it my way.

Since I do a lot of covid testing, I was recently classified as “1A,” and invited to receive the Moderna vaccine. That’s why I was checking in at my local vaccination center. The man at the desk had a fancy ID badge and wore a bright vest that said Community Emergency Response Team, or something like that. He looked very official. And yet, he didn’t seem to understand basic principles of virus transmission. Still, he seemed offended that I had the temerity to challenge him. I wonder if he was actually trained for his function, beyond how to hand out and collect the forms. Perhaps unfairly, I decided that he probably didn’t even know what a “fomite” was.

The authority and competence conferred by a uniform is striking. Even if they weren’t carrying a gun, most of us wouldn’t think of disobeying–or even questioning–a person wearing a police officer’s uniform. TSA officials, fire fighters, security guards, and even flight attendants gain automatic credibility because of what they’re wearing.

The sense of authority is not only experienced by “the public,” but redounds to the uniform wearers themselves. I certainly feel it when I do covid testing. How could I look any more authoritative than when I’m swathed in PPE—gown, gloves, N95 mask, and face shield? (see photo). When I motion a driver to maneuver her car to my spot in the testing area, I expect her to promptly comply. When I tell a passenger to roll down his window, I feel fully entitled to ask him all sorts of questions before administering the test. And then for him to happily let me poke a long swab up his nose. If I told him to, he’d probably get out of his car, stand on his head, and yodel. I have to say, enclosed in my elaborate PPE uniform, more than once I’ve been tempted to give a definitive answer to a question without actually being sure I was right.

And, of course, when I’m wearing a white coat and have a stethoscope around my neck, a complete stranger will readily disrobe at my request. It’s not simply that the encounter occurs in a hospital or a medical office. Imagine how a patient would react if the receptionist or a member of the cleaning crew came into the exam room and told the patient they were going to do a rectal exam. No, it’s the uniform, not the location, that matters.

One time when my resident was busy with an emergency, I was called to start a subclavian IV line. In my scrubs and white coat, I introduced myself to the patient and told him what I was about to do: anesthetize the skin halfway between the shoulder and the neck, then insert a large-bore needle just below the collar bone. Then I’d thread a long IV tube through the needle until its tip sat just above the entrance to the heart. He shrugged and said, “Fine, doctor.” With my hand slightly shaking, just before starting the procedure I said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve never done this before.” He laughed at my joke, and we both felt more relaxed. Everything went fine. I can’t recall if I ever told him that I had actually been telling the truth.



After a short wait, the official at the check-in desk motioned me to go to one of the vaccine stations. The vaccinator was wearing a fancy vest and a Medical Reserve Corps badge. She looked very official, and thus very competent. I noticed that after her name on the badge it said, MD. Hmm. “Hi,” I said, “I’m a doctor too. I think the last time I gave a shot was in medical school. How about you?” “Well,” she said, with a faint smile, “that’s pretty much true for me as well. A nurse gave me a little refresher course this morning.” “So am I your first patient?” I asked. “No. You’re about the ninth” The shot was OK, but certainly not as slick as if a nurse had given it.

Since like my vaccinator I’m part of the Medical Reserve Corps, I may be called up to start giving vaccinations when Phase 1B kicks in and the number of people needing shots dramatically increases. If so, I’ll certainly look at some YouTube videos, and get instruction from my wife, who, as a nurse has given far more shots than I ever will. When I set up my station, all gussied up in my official vest and MRC badge, I hope the first recipient will assume I know how to give a good shot. I probably won’t volunteer that the last one I gave was almost 50 years ago.

During my break, I’ll have to see if that same official guy is manning the check-in desk. If so, I’ll have to resist the temptation to introduce myself, puff out my vest-swathed and badge-decorated chest, and explain to him what a fomite is.

The Queen Mary

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About four years ago I went to Long Beach, CA to give a talk. But of more interest to me than the conference was that Long Beach was home to the Queen Mary. After taking passengers across the Atlantic for 31 years, this ocean liner was permanently docked at Long Beach and converted into a floating hotel. I was drawn to the Queen Mary because, when I was two years old, my mother took me to Europe aboard this ship. The purpose of the voyage was to rendezvous with my father, who had gone to Berlin to work in the lab of a famous German scientist. I wrote about this trip in a recent blog post.

I vividly remember standing on the deck in mid-ocean, looking up at one of the huge smokestacks. It suddenly belched black smoke and emitted a terrifying, bone-shaking blast. Well, I say I vividly remember this experience, but in fact I probably don’t. Psychologists believe that kids rarely retain memories from such an early age. It’s more likely that my memory was induced by several iconic photographs my mother took on the ship, as well as stories she told me over the years. But real or induced, I’ve held that image of standing at the base of the belching, blasting smokestack for almost 70 years. So being in Long Beach was an irresistible opportunity to retrace my footsteps on the venerable decks of this famous ocean liner, to which I had a special relationship.

Since I’d arrived the day before the conference began, there was plenty of time. A long waterfront walk from my hotel took me to the Queen Mary. Signs led me to an outdoor elevator that went up several stories to the main deck. As soon as I stepped onto the ship, I saw them: three enormous orange and black smokestacks (which I soon learned were actually called “funnels”) looming above me. An unexpected shiver ran through my body. Walking to the base of the middle funnel, I looked up at its immense height. For a two-year-old, it must have seemed even taller! Was I standing in this exact spot when it smoked and hooted so many years ago?

I strolled all along the deck, touching and then standing beneath each of the other two funnels to be sure I had the right one. I took many selfies. And, very uncharacteristically, I approached another tourist and asked him to take some photos with my phone. Not only that, I also realized I needed to share how momentous this occasion was, so I told him about being on this ship as a small child, clearly long before he was even born. He smiled indulgently.

Then, for the next several hours I walked up and down the many levels of the ship. At some point, I figured, I’d pass the cabin where my mother and I stayed during our Atlantic crossing. I think I was hoping for a sort of dowsing-rod effect, so that I’d experience a special tingling when I came upon the door to that very cabin. But though I felt no particular prickles after my extended promenade, it was deeply moving to be on the same ship, walk the same decks, and see the same funnels that I had so long ago. As I almost compulsively touched the many railings, doorknobs, and furniture all over the ship, I felt transported back to that time. Memories–or perhaps, pseudo-memories– welled up. No matter which, I felt much more connected to my long-gone mother than I normally did, and to our time together on that voyage. My talk at the conference the next day went fine.


Recently I joined an ancestry website that offered links to all sort of historical data. As a result, I’ve been digging into my past. Naturally, one of the things I was particularly eager to find was concrete evidence of my European trip as a toddler. After considerable searching, I found it: a ship’s log documenting that Joyce Klein, age 33 and Kenneth Klein, age 2, departed New York City for Cherbourg on 16 February 1951. But wait–the ship was The Queen Elizabeth! How could that be, since I distinctly recalled that we had travelled on the Queen Mary? Then it occurred to me that maybe we went out on the Queen Elizabeth, and returned on the Queen Mary. After all, my “memory” of the voyage consisted of a single image beneath a huge orange and black funnel–the memory must have been from the homeward journey. I searched further. Bingo! I found the ship’s log for the return voyage: Joyce Klein, 34 (her birthday occurred during our time abroad), and Kenneth Klein, 2, left Southampton for New York on 29 March 1951. And the ship? Inexplicably, it was again the Queen Elizabeth! I was stunned.

Almost in a panic, I Googled these two ocean liners. It turned out they were sister ships, both constructed in Scotland for the Cunard Line. The Queen Mary was built first, beginning trans-Atlantic sailings in 1936. The Queen Elizabeth was completed two years later. It was closely modeled after the Queen Mary, but with an improved design that utilized just 12 boilers, rather than the Queen Mary’s 24, and only two funnels, to the Queen Mary’s three. Comparing photographs online, the funnels looked quite similar—huge, orange and black, and slightly tilted toward the stern of the ship.

I “knew” that we had sailed on the Queen Mary, but undeniably our trips were both on its sister ship. Had my mother mistakenly told me the Queen Mary? I highly doubt it. Apparently, at some point during the intervening decades—possibly even just before I went to Long Beach—the Queen Elizabeth had somehow morphed into the Queen Mary.

The Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary indeed looked similar. Thus it’s not surprising that my quite possibly bogus funnel memory was reinforced by seeing the Queen Mary’s funnels. But the fact remains that those weren’t the right funnels, the right decks, or the right railings that had all moved me so much. In retrospect, I felt foolish for having taken all those selfies with funnels I’d never been beneath. And breathlessly telling the fellow tourist that I took a trans-Atlantic voyage on a ship that I’d never even seen before.

This was a case of doubly mistaken recollections: First, I almost certainly didn’t have a real memory of being under the funnel of the ship that took me across the Atlantic. It was most likely implanted by photographs and family lore. Second, I associated the counterfeit memory with the wrong ship. If I’d remembered that our voyage was actually aboard the Queen Elizabeth, it’s unlikely that I would have bothered to visit the Queen Mary at all. I could have spent my free afternoon in Long Beach taking a long walk, or catching up on my reading rather than ambling around a random ship.

A question lingers: since I had no connection with that ship, where did my powerful feelings aboard the Queen Mary come from? Why did I feel so moved? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s simply that when vivid “memories”–accurate or faulty–are triggered, they activate circuits in our brain that powerfully connect us with our past. This helps us gain access to latent emotions. The veracity of the trigger certainly has little to do with the validity of the feelings it gives rise to. I emotionally resonated with something important in my life, even though the feelings had been switched on by a case of mistaken identity. Such an intense response seems just as genuine, and just as significant, as those arising from “true” memories. The main downside seems to be a little collateral embarrassment when the mistake comes to light.

I haven’t deleted the many photographs of me standing beneath the Queen Mary’s funnels, nor do I plan to do so.