This is America

There is a reason why we love this country, although at times it is difficult to put it into words.  We watch the news, and no matter the channel, the mission of the news is to tell us what is wrong with our country.  Shame on them.

My story is no different from most of yours.  I grew up in Maryland.  I grew up when Pong was the most amazing thing on the planet.  Like you, my world was put on hold to watch the landing on the moon—spectacular in black and white on a television that was so heavy it required the strength of two men to move it.

Maryland, Iowa, Oregon.  I have had the good fortune to have been to forty-seven states.  I am missing Alaska, Idaho, and Maine, and I would move to them sight unseen in a minute.  What makes my state special is the same as what makes yours special—I spent my youth there.

Cut grass in Maryland has a certain smell to it, as I’m sure yours does.  There is a certain mystique to the Maryland’s fireflies, its humidity, and its sport teams.  I knew the stats for every player on the Orioles and the Colts.  I was a devoted member of the Junior Orioles.  I collected soda bottle caps showing the names of the players of the Baltimore Colts.  Collectively, we gathered around a radio to listen to games of our teams.  At night I listened to the O’s on a transistor AM radio with an attached ear plug.

The most Maryland thing about Maryland is something most of you have never tasted—steamed crabs.  Not Dungeoness, not King, nor Snow…not Stone.  Blue crabs.  Caught in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.  Caught by kids hanging chicken necks from a row boat.  Caught by men and women setting crab pots from rickety wooden boats.

Maryland was a summer’s day eating steamed crabs.  We would buy the live crabs and steam them in beer and vinegar.  The crabs were seasoned with a combination of Old Bay and the purveyor’s secret mix of spices.  Our senior class party was a crab feast.  Crabs were the de rigueur offering at cookouts, and after a game of softball.  Part of the attraction of eating steamed crabs was the informality of the feast.  You could not buy them in a “fancy” restaurant.  The etiquette of eating crabs required a picnic table covered in butcher paper or newspapers, a wooden mallet, a role of paper towels, and pitchers of beer or unsweetened iced tea.

Some would waste time with the accoutrements; corn, coleslaw, and hush puppies.  Fillers.  Eating steamed crabs required the discipline of a prize fighter—stay the course.  Set aside several hours.  Pace yourself.  Your fingers will endure cuts from the claws.  The seasoning will enter the cuts and sting—that is part of the ritual.  The meal was akin to a dance marathon.  The weaker players eventually fade away; the stalwarts press forth, maintaining a rhythm until there are no more crabs.

My wife and children are in Miami for the month.  As compensation, I bought a half bushel of crabs.  Eating crabs requires a bit of a religious fervor, a devotion to the task.  The coffee table in the family room is prepared for the event—covered with a large black trash bag, a roll of paper towels, a knife and a wooden mallet.  I lick the seasoning from each shell, remove the legs, find the hidden meat, and then vivisect the body.  I place the empty shells in a large pot, along with a mirepoix of vegetables to make a crab stock.

This is Maryland, my Maryland.  In some respect, this is a tiny portion of America, an exercise repeated thousands of times across the country.  Different states, different fares.  Slow cooked pork ribs, burgers and dogs, sweet corn, watermelon.  To an outsider, our sense of Americaness may not make much sense.  To Americans, these singular rituals—our traditions, handed down from generation to generation—are part of the fabric that unites us.

So, on this Fourth of July, enjoy what you are doing.  Plan on enjoying it again next year and the year after.  Remember those who came before you, for it was their traditions that you now commemorate.  Few countries celebrate the right of the individual—your right to be you.  That is what is special about this place.  Independence Day  is a celebration of your right to be you.

Here’s a piece I submitted to a writing contest at NPR.  It has nothing to do with healthcare save for the first sentence which NPR supplied.  In case you are wondering, my 12-step program is progressing nicely.

The nurse left work at five o’clock.  A twelve-hour shift—only lost one, better than some nights, worse than others.  Two hours before sunup, the icy wind gnawed at her ankles.  With her caffeine gauge on empty, she ducked into Starbucks, glancing waywardly at the plethora of coffees posted overhead on the menu board.

“Do you guys actually pay someone to think up all this stuff?”  She asked rhetorically.  The still groggy looking twenty-something guy behind the counter ignored her, not a bright move on his part.  His hair looked like it was cut with an ax; an errant flap of it skittered over his right eye with each movement of his head.  His right ear lobe was pierced in three places, although he only wore one earring.  The nurse noticed a barbed-wire tattoo around his left bicep.

Intent on continuing the conversation, even if it was to remain one-sided, the nurse inquired, “I suppose you guys have a marketing think-tank to invent the product names.  That word “Grande,” that’s Italian, right?”

Twenty-Something occupied himself by steaming a pot of skim milk.

“So, help me think this through,” she implored.  “Since Grande is the one in the middle, it must be Italian for medium.  And, “Venti,” that must mean large.  Right?  So, here’s where I’m confused.  The one labeled, “Tall.”  Something tells me that doesn’t translate to small in any language.  If you take a small cup of coffee, and make people order it as a tall cup of coffee, maybe they will actually think it’s larger than it really is.  QED.  Quod erat demonstrandum.  That’s Latin for cut the crap.”

The nurse knew she was jousting in soliloquies with an idiot.  Nonplussed, Twenty-Something merely rolled his eyes and asked her what she wanted.

The nurse was usually not a half-caff, double mocha, skimmed latte kind of person.  In fact, it troubled her that some people were—troubled her a lot.  The person she had hogtied and left in the trunk of her car was one of them; he hadn’t known when to shut up, so she had done it for him.  By the time she had checked on him during her break, he’d frozen solid.

“Any ideas?”  The Twenty-Something foolishly pressed the nurse.

“What do you recommend for somebody who just wants a cup of coffee?”

“Do you want regular or decaf?”

“What’s the strongest you have?”

“Ethiopian.”

“Give me your largest.”

“Shall I leave room for cream?” asked Twenty-Something.

She looked at the prices.  Two dollars for a cup of coffee.  Why would anyone pay that much and then hide the taste of the coffee with cream, she wondered?  “No cream.  Instead, give me a latte grande with skim milk.”

“One grande latte,” Twenty-Something replied, correcting her syntax.  “Is that all?”

“Better give me a large orange juice.  That’s what’s it’s called, isn’t it, or is that also a grande?”

Her wit was lost on Twenty-Something.  “Large,” she murmured through her teeth.  “And a bagel, plain.”

“Toasted?  Cream cheese?”  She knew he was toying with her.

She’s had enough, grabbed the coffee, and headed for the door.

He hollered for her to pay, but the look she gave him told him to let it go.

Too bad the trunk couldn’t hold two.  She’d come back tomorrow to visit the boy.

Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

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This post has nothing to do with anything heady, nothing to do with healthcare.  I’ll pause for a minute while those of you who have better things to do with your time click the ‘X’ in the upper right corner.

Is there a time when regressing in your private life seems awfully attractive? Play along with me for a minute.  My wife and children are headed to Miami for a month; thirty days, 720 hours—I’ll defer to you to figure out the minutes.

While I am not looking forward to having them gone, I am looking forward to my Ponce de León hours of rebirth; finding my archived inner-self.  I may start by watching every Clint Eastwood movie—in order—smoking the Parodi beef-jerky cigars Clint favored in his B-movie westerns.  Lots of ill-advised scratching.  Socks skewed asunder in a forensic CSI Hansel and Gretel manner from one room to the next—follow the yellow brick road.  An ADHD month where I am able to accomplish everything that never made it to my to-do list.

What if via a time machine you were metaphorically single for a month?  I watch the Science Channel enough to know that a time machine requires one to travel faster than the speed of light which according to the laws of physics is mathematically impossible.  But suppose.

My first initiative—the Celine Dion CDs will be placed on the coffee table as coasters or tossed off the deck as though they were ninja shurikens (stars).  I then block “Dancing with the Stars” from the cable box.  People Magazine is used as fireplace tinder even though the temperature outside exceeds 90.  I get a thirty-day reprieve from the ‘just shoot me now’ question, “Should I do this or that,” knowing if I select column A she will select column B.

Pulse and BP both drop.  The lawn begins to grow.  Prior to the return of my family, I will be able to hide a giraffe in the grasses of my suburban savanna.  The anticipation of next thirty days reminds me of the book, The Cat in the hat Comes Back, knowing full well I will have to dedicate a few days removing all of the pink spots which have accumulated.  Paraphrasing…

“Then their mother came in and asked what did you do,

Did you have any fun; tell me what did you do?

Should I tell her about it?
Now, what SHOULD I do?
Well…
What would YOU do
If their mother asked YOU?”

That is how it appears to my inner Braveheart character.  The real me cowers knowing I do not have what Madeline Albright so inappropriately referred to as the cajones to pull this off—I am pretty certain she was also two spheres short of having the cajones of acting with the dignity required of her position—forgive me for being impolitic.

I am well trained.  The lawn will be mowed, the cover will be placed on the grill when it is not in use, the hose will be coiled neatly, the dishes will be aligned anally in the dishwasher, utensils upright and not spooning with one another.  The dust balls will surrender to the vacuum, and the plants will be watered.

Life goes on and so shall I.  The dream was good while it lasted.  I do not know if it is fear or cowardice which takes precedence.

If you call me during July, and I do not answer the phone, I may be vacuuming or dusting.  Please leave a message and I will get back to you after I run out of Pledge.

Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

My profiles: 
Contact me: paulroemer paulroemer paulroemer