… leave such a big hole in your heart?
Sport O’Reilly, 1996-2013, seen here basking in the sun with his beloved penguin. Rest in peace, little guy.
Category Archives: Ponderings
The fire across the street
On Saturday afternoon, I was absorbed in a big reorganization project on my computer so I didn’t pay much mind when sirens started to sound. Epworth United Methodist Church across the street runs a shelter and there have been a handful of times when ambulances have been called out to cart folks away for treatment.
But the sirens got louder and I heard yells through my closed windows. I looked up from my desk and saw this:
You can see that the fire truck has recently arrived and a firefighter is lugging the fire hose up the steps of the parsonage. It was fascinating to watch from my window as the men fearlessly fought the fire, extending the ladder across the street to hack their way through the roof to go at it from above. A crowd of dozens gathered to watch. Within minutes, the fire was safely under control and it was out completely within the hour. No one was hurt, I learned later.
Later that evening, the board-up company was there doing its job, hammering away through the night. I awoke to this sight:
It felt scary enough to me — I could feel the heat and smell the smoke from across the street — but the firefighters apparently did their job well. It didn’t even make the news, so far as I can tell.
Update: While no one was hurt, the pastor and his family are living in a Super 8 for the time being. All of their clothes and most of their belongings were destroyed by smoke and fire-hose water.
When the dawn
I initially wrote this soon after Elizabeth and I began dating. I revised it recently and it seems appropriate, given our recent wedding celebration, to share it here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
When the dawn
When the day is a dunce, dropping itself unceremoniously upon
Its helpless victims, those fools who awoke expecting
Or hoping, against hope, for brilliantine benevolence
When the night is a nincompoop, crawling clumsily upon
Its cooperating witnesses, those ne’er-do-wells who lie awake pondering
What they maybe, might have, could have done, or been
When the morning is a malcontent, thrusting itself unremorsefully upon
Its undercover agents, those daydreamers busy dredging
Inconceivable-seeming days against the crooked currents
When the night has come again
And the land is dark
Well, then, what wonder have we here?
Sweetness and light!
Sweetness and light!
Twinkling with a casual brilliance
Enfolding with the night
Standing at the crossroads
Walking amid the bogs and marshes
Past little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Accompanying what is present
And supplying what is lacking
Bedecked by boisterous eyes
And limned by lavishing lips
Brightening the sanctuaries
Drawing dignity within reach
Darkening the door
And daring to eat a peach
When the dawn is irradiated, shining unapologetically upon
Its reliable sources, those cloying crooners who rise singing
Unabashedly trumpeting their sweetness and light
When they march gaily across the glen
And the sun is high
Well, then, what wonder have we here?
– 30 –
Why so unserious?
In Red Eye, Melanie Zanona writes about a recent series of street attacks in Chicago:
While none of the victims were seriously injured – the Michigan man suffered a broken jaw and the Gold Coast man suffered lacerations and bruises to his head and body — the attacks have once again raised concerns among Chicagoans and tourists on how to protect themselves.
Hmm. If my jaw were broken, I’m pretty sure I’d consider it a serious injury.
Bronzed article
It looks as though I am no longer golden. I did manage to again land a journalism award from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors, but this time around it is a mere bronze — and a tie, at that.
The recognition comes in the best how-to article category, for a story I wrote on how physicians can help ease the strain experienced by family members called upon to make end-of-life care decisions for their loved ones. While the story is obviously geared toward doctors, it may be helpful as a primer on the topic for nonphysicians. Check it out.
A chair is a mystical thing
… everything in life, directly or indirectly, has a great degree of mystery. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, “Some days I feel like my shadow’s casting me.” Persons, places, things … time itself is a mystery. You know, like, who can explain it? It’s really difficult to define anything. What’s slow can speed up. Love can turn into hate. Peace can turn into war. Pride can turn into humility. Anger to grief.
How would you define a simple thing like a chair, for instance—something you sit on? Well, it’s more than that. You can sit on a curb, or a fence. But they are not chairs. So what makes a chair a chair? Maybe it’s got arms? A cross has arms, so has a person. Maybe the chair doesn’t have arms? Okay, so it’s a post or a flagpole. But those aren’t chairs. A chair has four legs. So does a table. So does a dog. But they’re not chairs either. So a chair is a mystical thing. It’s got a divine presence.
There’s a gloomy veil of chaos that surrounds it. And “chaos” in Greek means “air.” So we live in chaos and we breathe it. Is it any wonder why some people snap and go crazy? Mystery is ancient. It’s the essence of everything. It violates all conventions of beauty and understanding. It was there before the beginning, and it will be there beyond the end. We were created in it.
The Mississippi Sheiks recorded a song called “Stop and Listen.” To most music aficionados, it’s but a ragtime blues. But to me, it’s words of wisdom. Saint Paul said we see through the glass darkly. There’s plenty of mystery in nature and contemporary life. For some people, it’s too harsh to deal with. But I don’t see it that way.
– Bob Dylan, on painting
Depressing quote of the day
“They were good up to about 14,” said Mattie Ashford, 77, who helped raise them after their mother died when they were 3. “Then they started running with the wrong crowd, getting into trouble.”
So says the grandmother of twin 17-year-old men, now both in jail. One brother was charged Wednesday with murder in an iPhone robbery gone wrong on the el. The other acted as his lookout and accomplice in a series of robberies across the city.
Read the rest of Jeremy Gorner and Jason Meisner’s impressively sad Chicago Tribune story on the case.
Shiny, happy
I just switched my WordPress.com blog to the Twenty Eleven theme and designed a new header. I think it looks pretty swell!
Golden again
I’m pleased to report that the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors recently honored two of my stories — “Katrina’s legacy: Moving beyond the storm” and “Katrina’s legacy: Rethinking disaster planning” — with the gold award in their best feature article series category.
I was afforded the opportunity to travel to New Orleans last year to do some first-hand reporting on how its recovery has progressed. I owe a debt to my editor, Damon Adams, for helping to make that happen. Click here for the slide show that ran online with the “Moving Beyond the Storm” story. And here’s a little music:
My ESPN TV appearance
Back in October, I blogged about my brief appearance on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” to discuss the issues raised in my American Medical News story, “Put me in, Doc.” Well, now you can see me in action. Thanks to Brad Priller for his help ripping the video, which you can see below.
Ballooning over Sedona, Ariz.
The sun rises over the red rocks of Sedona, Ariz.
Earlier this month, Elizabeth and I traveled to Sedona, Ariz. — and then floated above it, courtesy of Red Rock Balloon Adventures. The shot above is one of my favorite pictures from our journey into the skies over one of the loveliest spots on Earth.
Click here to see the rest of my pictures from the trip, or view them as a slide show. Here is a slide show from an earlier trip to Sedona.
The serf of some media
Well, after my recent TV appearance, it is only natural to follow up by broadening my media reach to include the world of books.
A January 2009 feature article I wrote for American Medical News, “Redefining death: A new ethical dilemma,” is included in a new textbook issued by Greenhaven Press. The book, “Bioethics in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” is part of the publisher’s “Social Issues in Literature” series aimed at high-school students and is meant to be a companion for when they read the novel.
The book is broken into three sections — one with background about Shelley, the second featuring commentaries on bioethical issues in the novel, and the third highlighting “contemporary perspectives on bioethics.” That third section is where my story on transplant physicians pushing the boundaries of what constitutes death comes in. Greenhaven sent me a complimentary copy of the book, and perhaps this will push me to actually read the Shelley classic.
The important thing to note is that my prose may now potentially help educate America’s youth — a frightening prospect, indeed. This is almost as scary as when one of my articles — about a poll on physicians’ views of doctor-assisted suicide — was cited by a Montana judge in her opinion (page 22) granting terminally ill patients in that state the constitutional right to physician-aided death. Alarmingly, my sphere of influence is growing ever wider.
TV talkin’ post
Yours truly on ESPN. Photo by Pam Dolan.
So, my “Put me in, Doc” story blew up last week and by Friday, landed me on ESPN for a brief, live on-camera segment with Bob Ley on “Outside the Lines.”
When Dr. Haraldson told me the story that I used as the lede in my article, I knew it would make a splendid anecdote to illustrate the team physician’s ethical dilemma.
I did not predict, however, that it would create such a splash in Dallas, Fort Worth and across the college football and sports world. That just shows that my news judgment still has a ways to go.
Here is a rough transcript of my ESPN appearance (scroll down, no video found yet UPDATE: here’s the video), which includes a few of the sweetest words I’ve ever heard uttered: “Now we say hello to Kevin O’Reilly, who reports for American Medical News and first broke this story.”
