Depression and the migratory urge

I don't know about you but I have been pretty depressed here lately. My business has dried up and blown away to heaven only knows where. My baseball teams never made it past the first part of post season and now the mid-term elections are over. I suppose that I am just bored with life with nothing much to focus on. My candidates won for the most part in the elections. I really sort of liked seeing San Francisco win the series. Buster Posey played baseball right here in Tallahassee at FSU and I have always followed Cody Ross from his days with the Marlins.

I think there is something more here that I am dealing with and it has been a theory of mine for several years. I have a very happy life. My wife who was very ill earlier this year has rallied back and is her old self. I have wonderful children and I have 5 grandchildren who live within 30 minutes of me. Soon I will have two more of those. I have a wonderful home in a NE subdivision of Florida's capital city. So far I have been able to keep the wolf away from the front door. My football team is defending national champs and running at #6 in the BCS. I play golf once or twice a week with good friends. My scores suck rocks but that has not changed recently. So just what is it that is bugging me?

Here is the point of this post. I don't know if you experience this or not. I find in my own life that when the weather changes and fall settles in around us, I get a sense of melancholy and nostalgia for no apparent reason. I sort of review my past and drag up all the hurtful things that have occurred in my personal history and I feel regret and sometimes just abject depression. I suppose I could get my doc to Rx the latest SSRI and get to feeling better but I find that it always seems to go away eventually. But what the heck is it?

What occurs in nature when the seasons change? The bears load up on carbs and hibernate. The Canadian geese, except for the ones who defecate all over the greens on my golf course year round, fly south. Heck, even the monarch butterflies come floating in over the Gulf of Mexico in the hundreds of thousands. You see thier little corpses all over Hwy 98 south as some of them make landfall with unfortunate synchronicity of the passing of a car. Man, what is up with all that?

I believe that there is a remnant of the migratory urge in all of us. It is settled way down in our DNA. Back when we lived in caves and or tents or on the side of a cliff in a dugout apartment the weather would change. This signaled to us that we better follow the herds, head to a warmer climate or hunker down for the winter. I visited a place once upon a time named Montezuma's castle. It is about 50-60 miles north of Phoenix. There in the side of a sheer cliff are the remnants of the homes of a race of people who just up and disappeared back in around 1100 AD. No one knows where they went or why.

I think we mistake depression often for this wanderlust that seems to be endemic inside all of us. Now don't get me wrong there is a lot of stuff to be depressed about. Our economy is in deep guacamole. I don't see it turning anytime soon. However, who am I to judge. There are people that we just elected to office that are much smarter and more clever than you and I that are going to save us all. What's that? They are no more clever than any of the rest of us? Gulp !! Guess I will start taking a look at property in Niceragua.

Why not be crazy?

I was reading a survey posted up on WCTV.com concerning the terribly exciting and ever present tea party movement. In my humble opinion the study was overtly biased, psychobabble. The end points were designed in advance to support their opinion that the tea partiers are right wing, whacko extremists.

I base that opinion on the inculcation of one word into the survey questions. " Are you of the opinion that the tea-partiers are crazy ?" Now I am not a scientist. I did, however, work for a science company for thirty years. I used to read and present materials from studies to very educated people. Your credibility was at risk if that study seemed biased in any fashion.

There is an entire branch of medicine that is dedicated to the determination of a person's mental health. I believe to become a psychiatrist you must have 4 years of college, followed by 4 years of medical school. I believe there is a 5 year residency following all that.

There is a 400 plus page textbook manual entitled the DSM-IV manual. It is a comprehensive listing of thousands of diagnosis codes related to mental illness. There is not one single code applied to the term crazy. Way too general. People can be bipolar, schizophrenic ( with or without delusion ), paranoid, obsessive, etc. etc. I am totally unqualified to diagnose or categorize.

However we as a society toss around the term crazy constantly. " Crazy, baby !" " Man you were crazy drunk last night." Hello, you crazy son-of-a-buck." " My friend is crazy about you. Do you want to go out with her? " " That guy driving that red Corvette is a crazy driver."

I think the more rational conclusion to draw is that we are all crazy in one vein or another. Is being a little crazy a bad thing? Have you ever been around someone so stiff and boring that you would like to inject them with a little crazy?

I don't know what conclusions you can draw from anything on this post. Trying to do so could drive you totally..............................CRAZY !!!!!!!

I will tell you something that truly is crazy. This real estate market we are in. It is the low point of the recovery ( what recovery?). I get lots of people asking me to explain it to them. I simply mutter something about "man it is crazy, I will get back to you."

I will try to help you figure it out in a sort of group therapy session. Visit me on my website at
http://elvass.com

Look at life through the windshield not the rear view mirror

I am a rabid football fan. I am schiziod in my allegiances. I have followed the University of Alabama since 1963 when I moved to Montgomery. I started out life in West Virginia, so I naturally like to see the Mountaineers win. I also like University of Florida where I sent a daughter and I like to see the home town 'Noles win because I sent a son and a another daughter through there.

My wife, Nancy, grew up in the shadow of Florida State University and graduated from Brigham Young University so she naturally is a rabid Georgia Bulldog fan. She likes to see the 'Noles win and of course her alma mater as well, but has done a lot of oozing over the bulldogs season.

My team, Alabama, (number one in the nation up 'til yesterday) got shellacked by the gamecocks of South Carolina. I was DEPRESSED afterwards. Maggie the wonder bassett felt it would be a good idea for her to take me for a walk after the loss to settle my nerves. She loves me and felt that a little squirrel and or rabbit chasing would improve my spirits. Nancy said to me as I we left the house, " Are you going to be OK." I told her, " I almost buried you back in April. I did bury one of my very best friends last week. This is a stupid football game. Of course I will be allright."

I once heard one of the leaders in my church say, " It is vitally important that we proceed through life looking at the world through the windshield rather than the rear view mirror." What a positive statement that is. There is a ton of stuff to get us down. Football games don't make a good sized pimple of importance on the buttocks of life in general.

I lost my job back in 2002. That will soon be 9 years ago. I could have drawn myself into a hole and put on 200 pounds and watched ESPN all day long and night. Living my life via the rear view mirror was not an option for me. I had a very successful 30 year career with a Fortune 500 company. They treated me fairly and I still get a pension from them. I decided to try real estate and have been a top producer in that realm from the first year. Now we are in the throws of a downturn in that business. Lots of soul searching as to what has gone on in the past to destroy that business along with the economy in general.

Tomorrow is a new day. Bama is going to win the rest of its games and play the Gamecocks in December in Atlanta for the SEC championship. After we beat them we are going to play Ohio State or Boise State for the national championship.

If and when this real estate economy turns around, I am going to go back to selling 3-4 million dollars of homes per year. I liked the way little orphan Annie put in "Annie" the motion picture.
" Tomorrow is just a day away." I also liked what coach Bobby Bowden said to Bert Reynolds in an episode of Evening Shade several years ago. The scenario was that Reynolds character wanted his son to play for Florida State. Coach Bowden went to talk with the boy as a courtesy to the Reynold's character. Reynolds was all depressed that the kid was not Seminole material. Bowden's parting comment was, " Football is only a GAME. !!"

Roll Tide and please pass the Kleenex.

Visit me on the web if you get bored at http://www.elvass.com

Death, the enemy, or our friend?

I was walking by my neighbor's house here about a year ago and I saw the 85 year old wife sitting on the front porch alone. I had not seen her for a while so I walked towards her and greeted her. She seemed preoccupied. For the last several months I was aware of the fact that she had been suffering some rather severe dimentia. She did not acknowledge my cheery hello but instead said to me " Lee, I think I am going to have to place Dr. Townsend in a nursing home. " She went on to describe how he had been sleeping excessively and was not eating. I asked her if I could see him.

She took me to him. Sure enough, he was in his bed and cast a suspicious and wary eye on me. Now, here was a man whom I have lived by for the last 20 years. He was an active golfer for much of that time. He was retired from the Navy and had at one time been the commander of a significant base hospital. He was a physician and a very smart and friendly fellow. I liked him a great deal and always looked forward to running into him.

Now, here he was, obviously on the downslope of a pretty serious decline in health. I believe there may have been a bit of estrangement between he and his offspring based on the fact that none of them to my knowledge came to visit very often. Well I spoke with a neighbor across the street who was a nurse and their next door neighbors so we could begin a period of keeping them under close surveillance so that they would be in safe harbor.

We all responded and were doing pretty well getting him to see his doctor who prescribed meds to him and sent him on his way. Then came the day where he fell and could not get up. A call was made to 911 and the ambulance came. He resisted being transferred to the hospital because he knew the score. He was quoted as saying, " I just want to be left alone to die here in my own bed." Well he was transferred anyway and they diagnosed him as being dehydrated and having had a mild heart attack. They put him into ICU and kept him there for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime we made contact with a son and ended up having both of the sons come, one an attorney and the other a physician. The decision was made that he would be moved to be near one of them along with Mrs. Townsend. Dr. Townsend made the 18 hour trip in the front seat of his own car. Within 3 weeks we, the neighbors, got wind that he had passed away. He ws 90 years old. Echoing in my mind was his proclamation that he " just wanted to die in his own bed."

Here was a man who had practiced medicine over the course of a lifetime. He knew he was dying. He embraced it and accepted it. The rest of us could not just stand by and not seek some sort of intervention. He led a full, successful and pretty happy life. What would have been wrong with letting him die in his own bed?

I just delivered a eulogy for a friend of mine, Colin. You can read the eulogy if you like on the home page of my website, under "About". Colin had been diagnosed with cancer almost 10 years ago. I made his acquaintance and became his friend approximately 6 years ago. He was always sick and having to take radiation thereapy and ultimately chemotherapy the entire time I knew him. He loved life and did well for the extent of his illness for many years.

His son came and lived with him about 3 years ago and his daughter came within the last year. He was not alone. He would get to feeling better and then lose ground to the illness. He fought a long and brave battle. During his final days he suffered incredibly. Death came at almost midnight 9 days ago. His children and his beloved sister were beside him holding his hand as he passed away. Suddenly in as long as it takes to take a breath and let it out he was gone. The suffering stopped and he was at peace. He was 60 years of age.

My own Father in law contracted an illness akin to Lou Gehrig's disease. It was called a rediculo transverse myolopathy. In any event he was rendered parlyzed from his neck down, placed on a ventilator and had to be moved 250 miles away from his home to be supported in a ventilator hospital. He died after 6 years in that hospital on that ventilator. That was 13 years ago.

My mother in law lived to the age of 86 and got sick and died within 24 hours. She was surrounded by her entire immediate family as she took that last breath and surrendered to the reaper. Cancer took my father at 70 years of age. He was diagnosed in November and dead by mid December.

Is the reaper the enemy or is he our friend? In all of these scenarios I think he was a friend. I once read a quote by a philosopher who said," We fear death as if it were the greatest enemy. We do not know if it is the greatest good. How could anything as natural as death, designed by the Great Architect be bad? We live in the land of the dying. The next land ( for the believer ) is the land of the living. We die that we die no more." ( Neil Fugal, paraphrased ).

I suppose that someday we will all know, won't we? None of us are getting out of this world alive.

Lee Vass
http://www.elvass.com/

Shooting and a lesson learned

I wanted to post on the subject of shooting. I am blessed to have good neighbors. One of my neighbors is Lamar. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is also sort of a gun collector. We, on occassion, go down to the Wakulla County Sheriffs shooting range. If you own a gun then the problem persists as to where are you ever going to shoot it. Lamar and I solved that by going 40 miles down to the country. The sheriff there is very kind in that he opens up his facility to the public. On one recent excursion I learned a lesson concerning contrasts.

While Lamar and I were shooting our handguns at some innocent little paper targets there were some deputies apparently being qualified on their new assault rifles. We stood and watched them shooting and were amazed at the amount of fire power they held in their hands. It was impressive seeing them handle and perform with those weapons.

Now these were AR15's. They hold 30 rounds of ammo and you could squeeze those rounds off in a matter of seconds. After they run empty you just slap in another magazine and repeat. The ammo is lethal. It is about 2..5 inches long and would be coming at you so fast that it would be nigh unto impossible to avoid being hit, if you were the target. You ask yourself why do Sheriff's deputies have to have such a sophisticated piece of firepower? The answer is quite simplistic. Because the bad guys have all got assault rifles and anything else you can imagine.

Now I have to introduce you to Keith, one of my other neighbors. He is a retired cop with FDLE. He is another nice guy. Lamar and I got to speaking with Keith and he invited us into his house to look at a couple of guns that he was proud of. They were turn of the 19th century powder and ball muskets. They were quite impressive. He took them down off the wall and allowed us to heft them and look at them. These guns were responsible for helping us, as a country, to win our independence from Great Britain.

These smooth bore muskets were quite heavy. As I held the one of them I could not help but contrast what we had seen earlier down at the WCSO shooting range. In every Revolutionary or Civil war movie I ever saw, I recalled two lines of enemies facing off at one another and firing these guns point blank at the other guy. They had to shoot and then reload, filling the powder receptacle with powder and then putting a lead ball down the muzzle with a rod for that purpose. To shoot 10 rounds took them about 15 minutes. Another part of the story is that from 100 yards or more the balls fired were terribly innacurate and ineffective. The damage came from the soldier charging you and working you over with the fixed bayonettes.

I am 65 years of age. Somtimes the progress of mankind just dumbfounds me. Early in my career, just after college, I was administered a test by IBM as to whether or not I had any data processing aptitude. Turned out that I did. This was about 1970. My company wanted me to go off and let IBM train me up on a new data processing system that they were going to implement. I had just finished 4 years of hard work getting that BS and had enough. I passed on the opportunity, electing to be a sales and marketing guy.

I remember that we cleared out a room for the equipment. It was a room about 18x20 feet. There was a key punch station, card sorter and printer. That equipment looked like farm equipment. The little Blackberry that I hold in my hand today is abut 1000 times more efficient and 1,000,000 times faster than that stuff was.

My point is simply this ( and it is no epiphany ): This age we live in is so fast paced that it is almost impossible to keep up with it all. Somedays I feel like a cave man trying to keep up. But I keep trying. If I don't keep trying, life will knock me flat as one of those rounds from that AR15.

There are some sweet sides of it as well. I got a picture sent to me by my son in law of my two granddaughters selling lemonade in their driveway. How did it come? In an envelope with a stamp? No, it came through the airways onto my smartphone, seconds after it was taken. I watched 11 hours of football yesterday. BYU-FSU; 'Bama-Duke; Bulldogs and Razorbacks; LSU-So Miss.; Auburn-Clemson. I never left my recliner, except to get a snack. I watched on digital cable with high definition. It was better than being there.

I love it! Don't you?

Mosque across from All Saints Church, Mayberry

Sometimes I think the media just tries to determine how riled up they can get everyone. This preacher in Gainesville could not have bought the publicity he has recently gotten for many millions of dollars. It has been intriguing to watch the national scribes whip the populace up into a frenzy.

You know, I don't really like the fact that this minister is going to burn copies of the Koran. Yet my logical mind tells me that if this guy had done this secretly and told no one then the world would still have continued to turn on it's axis. Of course then he would have remained the obscure little sociopath that he is. Do you suppose that this guy ever graduated from junior high school? Yet he has been contacted by the white house, Hilliary Clinton, General Petraeus, and on and on. He has much more notoriety than you and I do. Why? Because he is being used as the poster child for intolerance, bigotry and downright ignorance.

I know several people who are Muslim. I would just about have to say without any qualification that they are good, good people. They work hard and take care of their families. So what is the rub on these poor folks?

Well it is just like this. It is the extremists that we fear and loathe. Indeed we are at war with the extremists who brought down the twin towers. Why did they do that? Because they are nutcakes, intolerant, bigoted and ignorant. There is an organization named the Ku Klux Klan. What is their schtick? Intolerance, bigotry and ignorance. They started out as a means whereby the Protestant churches of the mid-1800's decided to deal with the question of slavery. The last time I checked the KKK is not doing all that well. It is a commentary on the many billions of dollars and time expended in corporate headquarters all over the globe holding diversity and sensitivity seminars that have tanked such intolerant organizations.

Now we see this phenomenon on our radar. It comes from the very people who have been the seedbed for the undoing of political incorrectness and bigotry over the years, the big media. This brouhaha has not been fostered by some little incidental BLOG. It has come about by the mainstream media. It is truly strange in derivation. I will admit, I just do not comprehend the whys and the wherefores of this tempest in a teacup.

I am a product of small town America. That gives me quite a bit of credit. Hillsdale, West Virginia is not a town it is a wide spot in the road. I am a disciple of the Andy Griffith era. I read this BLOG by Kay Campbell a Huntsville Times blogger and found it amusing. Take a look at it and see if you can decipher how Andy would have handled this mosque business.

http://blog.al.com/living-times/2010/09/what_would_andy_do_finding_fre.html#incart_hbx

What CPT code do you hit for "Friend therapy"?

A CPT code is coder language for how a healthcare provider bills your insurance for services. My physician son-in-law is on his way to a conference on this very subject as he begins his new career as a physician. I spent a week in Dallas when I worked for a healthcare company to learn as much as I could about ICD-9 codes and CPT codes in billing for a particular therapy in which my company was involved. Mind numbingly BORING.

So what is the point of my post today? I am never sure but here are some random thoughts about how we often receive therapy and are never billed for it. I have to take you back in time when I was a sales specialist for a drug called Revia (naltrexone HCl). Our indication, or license, was for alcoholism. This drug helped along with therapy and counseling to get alcoholics off the booze. It never was a big time winner but I was fairly successful with it. Anyways it was fun to talk about.

I remember being invited to a drug and alcohol treatment facility by our representative in Pensacola to speak with people about Revia. I also had an appointment with the sitting President of the Florida Psychiatric Association. This visit went very well. This physician/psychiatrist was keenly interested in what we had to tell him and it worked out to be a very nice interchange. We had a little time left at the end of our presentation and we were just sitting around shooting the bull with this brilliant physician. The local rep, Howard, threw a very thoughtful question out into the conversation. He asked, " Dr., when you are feeling sort of blue and low and disjointed, where do you go for therapy and answers to questions? I will never forget his response.

The physician looked thoughtfully at both of us and decided to give the question a response. This is what he said. " When I am having such a day as you describe I call a special friend. He is a man that is my age and makes his living as a tile setter. I went to kindergarten with him and ultimately graduated from high school with him. He and I climb onto a golf cart and spend 5 hours in pursuit of a dimpled spheroid. If I am in deep trouble, this visit could overlap into lunch or dinner. This man knows my soul and my heart. He always knows the right thing to say to me or not say to me. I always feel refreshed and enlightened after these sessions. I wish that my patients were to all have such a friend. Of course, I would soon be out of business if they all did."

I have often thought of that. I have a circle of friends that I play golf with and sometimes just go to lunch or breakfast with.. I have lots of acquaintances, numbering into the thousands. I have 256 facebook friends. However, there is only a small core of people that know my heart and soul. These are people that I count on. I am very fortunate that my wife is one of these people. I am also blessed that my son and daughters are in that circle. I also have 2 fine men who are married to my daughters that fill out this cadre of therapists. Along with it are little wider circle of people that I know from work, church, baseball, PTA, etc. They help me just when I sit and look at them. They square me up to the reality of important things.

No CPT code assessment is necessary in such therapeutic relationships. I wish that all people would avail themselves of such friends. There is also a wide army of people who are cynical, into private agendaes, selfish and painfully boring and opinionated. You know the type. You want to go hide in the bushes when you see them coming towards you.