Along Several fronts
Where in the world is Jeff Berthiaume.
We are hoping he may be on his way home. With the rapidly growing Corona virus and Pandemic fears, we wonder, will he arrive home on the date scheduled. Jeff has been away the entire month. He’s made stops in Sydney, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, and, most recently, the Republic of Palau. He’s had the opportunity to do a little fishing and send some photos. Thanks Jeff, I attach a few of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau
Another hop across the Ocean.
The wife and daughter Kathryn flew the Atlantic to help Sam, Captain, USAF get through a rough week with the flu, Masters level paper due, Husband away on a deployment, and four wee ones, seven and under.
Thanks to the winds of Storm Dennis, my two ladies made what is usually a six-hour flight in under five hours. In contrast, those traveling in the opposite direction took as long as eight hours. Their description of what was a harrowing landing in Ireland, sounded like something I’m glad I didn’t have to experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Dennis
Both Sam and her USAF Captain husband Zed are graduates of the USAFA. Sam is a Support Services officer, and Zed is a pilot. They are presently stationed at a NATO base in Germany and live a few miles away in the Netherlands.
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The ladies survived their child care experience and arrived back home safely a week ago. The girls did get to spend twenty-four hours in Dublin, Ireland during a layover. Even in the heavy rain and wind at the time, they got to walk about the Temple district among the inversely pointing umbrellas. Rumor has it they also indulged in something called a Guinness, whatever that is. https://www.dublintown.ie/temple-bar/
On their return the girls arrived on time in Philadelphia, where I met them. Kathryn retrieved her car from the parking lot and headed south towards home. She would be at work erly on Monday morning. The wife and I headed north towards Staten Island, NY. We had a family Funeral Mass to attend the next morning for a deceased Brother in-law, Rest in Peace Mike. To say the little lady was a bit disoriented from the jet-lag, and sudden obligation, is an understatement. One week later, I think she’s back in the necessary time zone. When all is normal, she’s back quilting, that she has resumed.
We had just returned from this same flight route on New Year’s Eve. Six of us spent the holidays with Sam and Family in Garmish Partenkierchen, Germany. During that trip we touched feet or tires in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Lichtenstein and England. What goes around, and goes around, and goes around.
Next up for the little lady is a house sitting stent in Connecticut next month. The few, the proud, the Marines, have nothing over this lady and her endurance. Me and the dog will keep the home fires burning.
Sleep well my friends, the elections are coming up, vote early, vote often.
Semper Fi , theRooster
Longevity and Adventuring
For the past five months, I’ve worked for a local Nursery. I spend two, sometimes three days a week as a driver and companion to one of the past owners. For the sake of this blog, I’ll call him HL. This man is the kindest and most pleasant man to spend a day with. I must also mention, he’s quite witty and shares a lot of history with me.
This is not my first rodeo doing this type of thing. Back in the late nineties, I was a driver and aide to the late James Brady and his wife Sarah. Jim was the Press Secretary to President Reagan at the time of the assassination attempt on March 30, 1981. I’ve written a blog in the past of one little tidbit during that time. Jim was another one of those people with a unique wit.
HL’s son is now in charge of the nursery business. In the early twenties HL’s father immigrated to America from the Netherlands as a Bulb salesman. He got this whole nursery thing started. The nursery as it’s known today started in 1962 with the first propagation in one unheated, deep cold frame.
HL loves traveling about the Delmarva Peninsula, looking at land, specifically farmland, as well as historic homes and buildings. We’ve also gone to the Pokomoke Discovery Center, where we learned about River Otters and the Harriett Tubman Underground Railroad Historical Site.
Moving On
A past Thursday found us at a long time employee’s Retirement and Birthday Party. The Company electrician was hanging up his non-conductive Electrical Plyers for a well-deserved cruise in the Carribean with his wife of 64 years, Judy. Kern was also celebrating his 84’th birthday that day and ending his 48’th year at the nursery.
So this old writer is still staying busy, gathering material, as he moves around the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Oh, and did I mention, HL buys lunch each day, there is a story in that process at most every meal. I’m thinking I’ll have to start a Gastro info blog from time to time. Have a great Sunday everyone.
theRooster
Clean Sheets
Our eldest daughter writes an article periodically for one of our local newspapers. Some time ago I wrote an article in my WordPress blog about making your bed as a first thing to accomplish each day. That Blog included the speech by Navy Seal, Admiral William H. McRaven. His speech was delivered as the commencement address to the graduates of The University of Texas at Austin on May 17, 2014. This article tells you about those sheets you should use to make that bed. I hope you enjoy her article. Thanks Kathryn for making this an easy blog.
POPULATION HEALTH
Florence Nightingale’s words help the healing environment
By Dr. Kathryn Fiddler
Saturdays at my house meant we had two choices: get up early, find your bike and get out of the house; or stay inside and clean with mom.
As often as we could, my brother, sister and I got up and out early, but a few times we stayed in and helped. We vacuumed, washed the floors, cleaned bathrooms and changed all the sheets. As much as we complained, changing sheets was our favorite part.
As a second-generation nurse, mom was trained to make a clean bed, and she made sure we knew how as well. She always said clean sheets were important to good health.
We would strip the beds and she would wash the sheets, then hang them on the clothesline to dry. Once they were dry, we would carry them to our bedroom.
The memory of carrying crisp fresh sheets to my room still makes me smile and brings me comfort. We pulled the sheets tight, made hospital corners on the ends and smoothed out the blankets.
Today I still relish my fresh sheets. I change them weekly and find great joy in slipping under the sheets in a freshly made bed.
Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing who was born in 1820, also believed in the importance of clean linens. While supporting soldiers in the Crimean War, she taught the nurses the importance of environment to healing.
She educated them on the healing value of fresh air, quiet surroundings, clean food, water and clean sheets. Her work led to reduced illness and death for British soldiers in the
war. Her work also inspired the training, for centuries, of nurses to come.
Today, 200 years later, the World Health Organization and the American Nurses Association has named 2020 the year of the nurse, in honor of the birth of Florence Nightingale, and in recognition of all nurses and midwives throughout the world.
Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals in the United States and have been named the most trusted profession for 18 years in a row.
Here on the Delmarva Peninsula, we have nurses in hospitals, in providers’ offices, in health departments, community centers, insurance companies, hospice, skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers, home health, veterans’ agencies and so many other places.
They have roles as mothers, fathers, caregivers, neighbors, spouses, and they support healthcare delivery and community outreach every day.
The skills, knowledge and roles of the 21st century nurse have all evolved since Florence Nightingale, but her philosophy of caring for the whole person and the value of cleanliness and disease prevention continues to be critical to good health today, and among our core values of nursing.
Dr. Kathryn Fiddler, DNP, MS, RN, NE-BC, is Vice President for Population Health Management at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury.
Don’t forget to check on the elderly.
theRooster
A share by someone I follow
Caterpillars Don’t Become Butterflies!
Posted on January 6, 2015 by mitchteemley
Did you know that caterpillars are not “transformed” into butterflies? In metamorphosis (the name of the process), a caterpillar is liquefied. Only after its actual death can entirely new creature, a butterfly, emerge!
But most people’s image of the process is more like Eric Carle’s classic children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in which the little caterpillar “makes a cocoon around himself and goes to sleep, only to wake up a few weeks later wonderfully transformed into a butterfly!” (amazon.com)
The Very Dead Caterpillar would probably have sold fewer copies. But it would have been more accurate.
When I was a kid, I used to love going to La Mirada Creek and catching those pudgy little pre-frogs we called pollywogs (you may have known them as tadpoles). I would bring them home and dump them into a tub, and then watch with fascination as they shed their tails, sprouted legs, and crawled out like showroom models: “The new Frog!” That’s transformation (“change of form”) and it’s majorly cool. But it’s not what a caterpillar does.
A caterpillar dies.
After building its own coffin (cocoon), the caterpillar seals itself inside—and dissolves. And then, in a process only vaguely understood by scientists, that stew of free-floating genetic material undergoes a total metamorphosis (“change of nature”).
In other words, butterflies are not souped-up caterpillars, they’re entirely new creations made from caterpillar soup!
Not surprisingly, caterpillars and butterflies are used as spiritual symbols in virtually every culture on earth. But because the real process is so radical and so little understood, they’re nearly always represented as symbols of transformation, rather than metamorphosis. To be fair, many religious teachings do help people become better caterpillars.
But that’s not enough.
According to Jesus, God doesn’t want souped-up caterpillars, he wants butterflies. He wants us to die to ourselves (Luke 9:23-24) and become completely “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Just like caterpillars do.
The Apostle Paul (in the Greek language of Romans 12:1 and 2) describes the process of metamorphosis like this:
“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice (build your cocoon and get in!), holy (‘set apart’), acceptable to God (nothing short of metamorphosis can accomplish this)… Don’t be conformed by (don’t take on the ‘shape’ of) this world (or ‘age’ or ‘era’), but (instead) be metamorphosed (changed in your very nature) by the renewing (‘regenerating’ or ‘re-growing”) of your mind (incidentally, the Greek word for mind is psuche—the same as the Greek word for butterfly!) so that you may be discerning (only by being metamorphosed can you know) what is the will of God (as opposed to the will of a dark and broken world), what is good, well-pleasing, and perfect (‘complete’ or ‘whole’—in contrast to the incompleteness and brokenness of this world).”
Caterpillars and butterflies are the world’s most popular symbol of transformation. But they’re also a far more powerful and challenging metaphor than most people realize.
It’s still the beginning of a new year. What better time to start over, not just as “the new You!” but as a completely new creation!
Are you ready to start work on that cocoon? Thanks Mitch, much appreciated, theRooster
As The Rooster Crows 