RIP Ryan Murray

   Dorothy was very pleased with The Murray Group, her insurers. And especially with the demeanor of the young son who had just entered the family business. He had evidently asked if she knew anyone who might want to avail themselves of their services, so she gave him our name. I had agreed because Dick Lohnes had retired from the insurers we'd had since I got my first car, and we'd heard his brother Bob was planning to sell the company. So we were open to change, though not really pursuing it at the time.
   So Ryan Murray came to our house to present his appraisal of our situation, and how we could improve it. He noted that our present insurers had not updated the value of our home, and thought that was an important oversight.
   So we agreed. I had the conversation with Dave later, as he wasn't home during Ryan's visit. He most likely was on the golf course. The quote produced by Ryan is dated August 23, 2005.
    The quote was financially to our advantage, to some extent. But what sold us (me) on the new policy  was the representative. Ryan was young, handsome, enthusiastic and polite. And so young. He was 26.
   I read his obituary in today's paper. He died at the age of 40 after a 19-month battle with Multiple Myeloma. He left young twin sons.

We still have our auto and home insurance with that agency, though the name changed from The Guilderland Group. I don't think we ever filed a claim.
**Adjoining Ryan's obituary is that of  Kathleen Goyette Napoli, who is most likely the wife of Grace Napoli's youngest brother, Daniel,a twin of David.

No. I didn't.

   I did not call you, Mena Budhoo, or anyone else all day long. She said she was returning my call, asked who I was, insisted I'd called, just a short time ago, she said. I had made NO calls at all, and told her so. She confirmed it was my number, but she must have read it wrong. Maybe she's dyslexic.

Proms---Then and Now

Sunday, May 19 7:30 a.m.

Forecast is warm and humid, temperature may reach 80. I say bring it on.

Caring Doctors We Have Known

   I've been thinking about Dr. Hugh Foley, and the care he extended to his patients.He was as busy as any doctor could have been. Yet he would call, unsolicited, at intervals, to check on your progress, especially if he suspected an issue of some sort. Of course he never charged any fee for his caring. He was not alone in that type of care, either.
    Pediatricians William Grattan and Martin Symansky would do the same. I remember calling Dr. Grattan's office for a sick baby. He was not in the office but on duty at the hospital, St. Mary's. He said to bring the baby into the hospital and he would meet us there. He did, we entered an examining room, and Dr. Grattan examined the baby ( I think it was David) and diagnosed and prescribed for him. He charged nothing for that visit. Dr. Grattan went above and beyond ordinary care when David was bitten by a dog and hospitalized. He took extra measures to insure that the dog was seized and immediately examined for rabies, saying that even though the dog had received its rabies shots, it had acted in an aggressive way against an infant on public property and needed its brain to undergo pathology asap. He took the necessary legal steps to insure the process was carried out.
    Danny once was knocked unconscious by a pitched baseball at practice. I drove him to the emergency room, and who showed up but Dr. Symansky, who had heard what had happened on his then car phone. He was as usual cheerful, thorough, and so reassuring. He charged no fee for that appearance.
   I read several years ago that he had remarried and had young children. I just looked him up and found he is still practicing pediatric medicine, even accepting  new patients. Dr. Symansky is one year older than I am.

Suffering from IMI ?

   Sometimes it's not so trivial or humorous to suffer from persistent Involuntary Musical Imagery (IMI).  You  may know it as an Earworm or Brainworm, the phenomenon sometimes called  Stuck Song Syndrome. You hear "Baby Shark" for example and you can't stop humming the refrain.  The musical imagery keeps repeating itself. Often it's a tune you don't even like, or more likely the lyrics, that you say drive you crazy--those catchy tunes.
   Almost everyone has been  subject to this occurrence from time to time, as have I. But never so persistently as for the last five or six days when I cannot stop hearing the lyrics of "The Gambler."  So, as is the case in searching for any information at all, I googled. I found a wealth of information and opinions about Earworms.
    There are simple suggestions as to how to rid your ears /brain of the worm:  Listen to other music, have a conversation with someone, do a crossword puzzle, read a book, chew gum, even listen to the "stuck" song over and over again. I tried all but two of these cures: (1) I can't chew gum any more, as I'm afraid my teeth, or at least my fillings, will adhere to the chewing gum and fall out. (2) I can't find anyone to have a conversation with, and certainly not about earworms. Moreover, what listening to the song over and over did resulted in my now knowing all the lyrics, not just "You gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them."
   I searched further, and found the earworm  syndrome has caught the attention of a great many writers over the years,in  fiction and nonfiction genres.
     Science fiction writer Arthur Clarke proposed in "The Ultimate Melody" that the phenomenon is fitted in with the brain' s fundamental electric rhythms, the circadian rhythms. His protagonist attempted to apply these rhythms, but was overcome by their power,  and was left in a permanent catatonic state. Mark Twain posited in a story that the only way you can get rid of these musical repetitions is to transfer them to another person. You can imagine how that worked out. Even contemporary television shows, like The Big Bang Theory, have dealt with the subject.  There are tales of madness and other horrors relating to this topic.
   Interesting reading, but not really any help.  The most plausible explanation I came across is that the earworm, the imagery of  musical repetition, is the  psychological manifestation of attempting to block out unwanted thoughts. I think that might be true. Only I would prefer to  block out morose or melancholy thoughts with a perky little jingle. Part of what I hear is :
     "Every gambler knows that the secret to survival is knowing what to throw away, knowing what to keep.
     .For every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser, And the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep."
 

Prom

I modestly aver that my pictures are so awesome because the subjects are not looking directly at the camera, would be even more awesome if combined with a steadier hand and a better camera.