Always Finish What You Start

     On Wednesday it was sunny and in the 60s. Then last night B and I took our dog out for her evening walk . . . and it was snowing! Just the first flurries, but enough to signal that winter is coming.

     There's nothing like curling up with a book on a snowy night. And last night I started reading a new book. B and I always read for a while before we go to sleep, sometimes only for ten minutes, other times for half an hour or more. But we both find that reading a book is absolutely the best way to fall asleep.

      But last night I was having a bit of trouble -- not falling asleep. Something else. Let me explain.  

"What's that white stuff?" asks our fall scarecrow.

     Maybe this seems familiar to you. First, about two weeks ago a friend of mine -- the friend I call Peter -- gave me a book to read. "It's really interesting," he said. "I'd love to know what you think."

     The book is The Burn Palace, a novel by Stephen Dobyns. I'd never heard of this writer before, but he's written a couple of dozen books, so he's not exactly new. The book is a mystery that takes place in Rhode Island, and the problem is: I did not like this book at all. I got through to about page 200 before I thought about giving up on it completely. Then I thought, well, I'm halfway through, so I should finish it. Besides, Peter's going to want to know what I think, and I can't tell him if I don't even know what happens at the end.

     So I plowed on, day after day -- because I find that if you don't like a book it takes a lot longer to read. I felt like I was doing homework the whole time. But I'll be seeing Peter tonight at our monthly poker game, and I know he'll ask me about the book, so I had a deadline.

     I dutifully went back to the book, over and over, reading maybe 20 pages at a time before giving up again. Finally, on Wednesday, I forced myself to finish it. Done! But then, I thought, why do I feel like I have to finish a book if I don't like it? And what am I going to tell Peter (who obviously liked the book)?

     So anyway, last night I joyfully picked up another book. This time I wanted one I would actually like. I grabbed In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien, which was sitting on my son's bedroom bureau. It has an intriguing cover -- and I thought I'd read something by Tim O'Brien before, and liked it.

     I went into the bathroom, washed up, brushed my teeth, then slipped into bed. I showed the book to B. "Have you ever read this one?" I asked.

At least this one I will enjoy

     "Oh, yeah," she nodded.

     "Is it any good? I need something that will really hold my attention, something I can get lost in."

     "That should work," she replied. "It's a really riveting book."

     "I think I read something by Tim O'Brien before. Something about Vietnam, maybe?"

     "He had that other bestseller," she said. "I don't remember the name."

     I looked at the book cover. "It says he also wrote Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried."

     "The Things They Carried. I think that was on Vietnam. A big bestseller."

     So I opened the book and started reading. And . . . wait a second, this seems familiar. John Wade and his wife Kathy are on vacation in Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. Wade has just lost the primary election for U. S. senator: "loser by a landslide" at age 41. Then there was a section called "Evidence" and his mother says, "He was always a secretive boy." And by about page 10, I realized I'd read the book before, only a couple of years ago.

     I don't know if that's ever happened to you. But boy, did that make me feel stupid.

     And yet, by now I had started the book. So I have to finish it!

Weekend to Remember

     For someone who claims he doesn't travel -- see last month's post  Why I Don't Like to Travel -- I seem to do a lot of traveling. Okay . . . in my defense, I usually don't go very far. My comfort zone is a couple of hundred miles, a three or four hour drive.

     Last weekend we journeyed to Lancaster, Pa. B has some family in the area, including her 98-year-old mother who lives in an assisted living facility. Lancaster, she tells me, has become a destination for many retirees because it has top-notch health facilities, a variety of independent and assisted living options, and a notably caring community.

     We didn't stay with her mother. We stayed in a very nice B & B a few miles outside of town. And I was surprised -- the place was full! Who would go to Lancaster, Pa. in November?

E. J. Bowman House Bed & Breakfast

      The area is a tourist destination for people who go to see the Amish riding in a horse and buggy. We didn't see any Amish on our long weekend, but we did see a few Mennonites (I think of them as Amish-lite). And we also saw a few other attractions. For example, there is a lot of history connected to the area. Lancaster was the capital of the Unites States for exactly one day during the Revolutionary War. It was also the hometown of a U. S. President . . . President James Buchanan, who is never considered among the best of the U. S. Presidents. But still, he was a President.

Home of James Buchanan, U. S President, 1857-61

     There's also a college on the edge of town. Franklin & Marshall is a small liberal arts college that's part of the Centennial Conference, which includes Swarthmore, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Gettysburg, Bryn Mawr and a few others.

Kind of screams college campus, doesn't it?

    There's an historic downtown area with a theater and an arts hotel and a stadium for a minor league baseball team. I didn't take a photo of the baseball stadium (not very interesting), but I was very impressed with the train station.

One impressive train station ... and I like the bicycles

     An interesting thing, in my book, is how you can be walking along the city streets . . .

Street scene in the city

      . . . and then drive out just a few miles, and you're in the country, with corn fields all around. A corn field probably doesn't seem very exotic to most people. But I never see a corn field where I live. Any undeveloped land around where I live is covered with hills and woods, not farms and fields.

Recently plowed under

     Finally, I have to make one confession. Most people, when you ask them what their favorite store is, say Nordstrom's, or R.E.I., or something like that. My favorite store is the local convenience store. We have 7-11 and AM/PM, and they're both perfectly adequate as far as convenience stores go. But they don't hold a candle to Wa Wa, which you find in New Jersey and around Philadelphia. But even better than Wa Wa is Turkey Hill, and we ran across several of them around Lancaster. And, by the way, regular gas was selling for $2.93 a gallon. Now there's a trip worth making!

My favorite store, esp. when gas is $2.93!!

     

A Surprise in the Mailbox

     Sure, I'm interested in social issues and economic questions. But I'm not particularly interested in politics, because politics represent the advertising and public relations aspects of governing, focusing on deceptive messages, irrational appeals, oppositional research and negative labeling.

     In my opinion the Democrats are terrible. The Republicans are even worse.

     I'm also not particularly enamored with the current state of our economy -- the low wages, the lack of opportunity, the reliance on fossil fuels and other resources that will likely get all used up, but not before fouling our environment, choking our air and super heating the atmosphere.

     Nevertheless, I was very impressed when I went out to my mailbox on election day -- although not for the reason you might think.

     Our mail usually arrives in the afternoon. So on Tuesday, as usual, I took the dog out to our mailbox around 3 p.m. Sometimes the mail has been delivered by 3 p.m., sometimes not. (The dog doesn't care.) The mail hadn't yet arrived on Tuesday.

     Like everyone else, we've been receiving truckfuls of negative political ads in the mail, mostly oversized postcards with draconian messages about candidates who are STEALING MONEY FROM OUR SCHOOLS! (photo of crazed middle-aged white male with dollar bills hanging out of his pockets), politicians UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION!! (black and white photo that looks like a mug shot), candidates with MONEY LAUNDERING MACHINES!!! (photo of $100 bill hanging from a clothesline).

     There are candidates who are GIVING AWAY OUR PARKLAND, who WON'T PROTECT OUR FAMILIES, who have VOTED TO RAISE PROPERTY TAXES, who are AGAINST THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE, who have RAISED THEIR OWN PAY, who are part of the WAR ON WOMEN.

     So anyway, I stopped back at our mailbox on Tuesday evening, as B and I were getting home after voting, and I saw yet another pile of junk mail crammed into our box. Oh jeez, I said to myself. Will these politicians ever stop? For Chrissakes, the election is over!

     I reached in, pulled out the pile of mail, stuck it under my arm, and brought it up to the house where I dumped it on the kitchen table. Wait a second, I thought. I didn't see the familiar dark, black, ghostly warnings of the negative political ads. Instead, the pile looked cheerful and colorful and happy. What's going on?

     So I reached down and spread out the mail on the table. No political ads at all. Not one! Instead I glimpsed green triangles and red splotches and bits of silver. Yes, what we had instead were at least a dozen catalogs featuring . . . Christmas items!

     So, yeah, by Dec. 25 we'll probably be just as sick of Christmas as we were of politics on Nov. 4. But I have to hand it to them. They are efficient! The switchover was timed perfectly. The very day of the election, the changeover from political advertisements to Christmas catalogs was accomplished seamlessly. No overlap. No wasted effort. Our capitalistic democracy in action!

Can Medical Care Be Free?

     I'll start with a personal note. I recently made an appointment for my annual checkup and was told that if I wanted to see a physician's assistant, then the checkup would be free -- fully paid for by Medicare -- but if I wanted to have the checkup with my doctor, then it would cost me $185.

     Would my Medicare Advantage plan pay the $185? No. Medicare Advantage only applies when Medicare has already paid its share. If Medicare doesn't pay, then Medicare Advantage doesn't pay. So, if I want a checkup with the doctor, I have to pay $185.

     At first, I was appalled. I thought medical insurers want us to focus on prevention, which is what an annual exam is all about, because prevention costs less than treatment. And my doctor knows me a lot better than a physician's assistant who's never even seen me before. So I feel like I'm trying to do the right thing, yet am being penalized for it (although I do not know if this policy is set by Medicare, or somehow set by my medical group).

     But I recalled a conversation I had with a friend of mine recently. Honestly, I wouldn't want to trade places with him. His wife has Parkinson's and a few other medical issues. He has a family history of heart problems, and has been wearing a pacemaker for several years now.

     Last spring he went into the hospital to have his pacemaker replaced. He was complaining about the bill. He said the original bill came to $135,000 for the procedure. His insurance company (he's not yet on Medicare; he still has medical insurance through work) negotiated the fee down to $70,000. Then the insurance company paid $63,000, or 90 percent.

     So my friend got billed for the $7,000 balance. He refused to pay it. In his view, if the insurance company was only going to pay $63,000, then it should have negotiated a $63,000 price. Why should he be stuck in the middle?

     Now, mind you, my friend could afford to pay $7,000. He's a lawyer. He's not rich, but he makes a good salary (even though, at age 66, he's scaled back his working hours). Anyway, his pay is at least good enough for him to own a second home in Florida and drive an Infinity.

     But I could see, he really didn't think it was fair for him to have to pay $7,000 for his pacemaker. Then he revealed that the hospital is now suing him for the money. And he expects to turn around and sue his insurance company.

     Now, put aside the fact that he's a lawyer and is more familiar with the court system than most of us. He's disputing the bill his way. But I wonder if I was in his position, would I dispute the bill? I'd do it my own way -- probably call them up and plead poverty and try to settle for a lower amount -- but would I be right in trying to get out of paying that $7,000?

     Then I read a story in the NY Times called "Unable to Meet the Deductible or the Doctor." A woman got insurance through the Affordable Care Act, but the policy has a $6,000 deductible. (By comparison, according to a survey by the Kaiser Foundation the average deductible for individual coverage in employer-sponsored plans is $1,217.) She had a brain aneurysm in 2011. Now she's supposed to get a brain scan every year. But according to the report, she skipped the brain scan this year -- because she'd have to pay for it herself, since she's responsible for her first $6,000 of medical bills.

     The idea behind a high-deductible plan is that it protects people from going bankrupt if they get a severe illness. But it leaves them on their own for less-than-catastrophic situations. And in many cases, people will simply skip the care they need, because it costs money. Sometimes they can't afford it at all; sometimes they can afford it but it would cause some hardship; and sometimes they just don't feel like they should have to pay.

     The Times story cites another woman who has a plan with a $1,000 deductible. She avoided going to the doctor for an ear infection, because she'd have to pay for it herself. Another person was "shocked" when they were billed "over $1,000" for an emergency room visit. And the list goes on.

     No one expects doctors and nurses and medical technicians to work for free, do they? And all that machinery costs a lot of money. We're not outraged when we have to pay our rent, or use our own money to buy a car or go to the grocery store -- all expenses that are just as necessary as accessing medical care. So why are we outraged when we have to pay a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars to save our lives, or extend our lives, or alleviate excruciating pain?

     One problem with medical bills is that they are so arbitrary, so random, so completely out of our control . . . and so ridiculously high that they seem unreal. It's like funny money.

     I don't know the answer. But I'm not so outraged anymore that I have to pay $185 to see my doctor. I just hope he doesn't find anything wrong with me . . . I'm not sure I can afford that!

Remember Him?

     His name was William Henry Pratt. He was born in London, the ninth child of a well-off English family. He went to local schools and attended King's College London, studying to go into the consular service like his older brothers, who all became distinguished members of the British foreign service.

     But William was the black sheep of the family. He was bowlegged, and stuttered as a child, and had a lisp. He dropped out of school and went to work as a farm laborer. Then at age 20, he up and left for Canada.

     Sometime around then he caught the acting bug, and he appeared in several stage shows around Canada. He made his way to Hollywood where he found work acting in silent films and film serials. But the movie business was pretty tough, even back then in the 1920s, and he had to support himself by digging ditches and unloading trucks.

     Around the time he landed in California he changed his name -- in part to seem more exotic, and in part to protect the reputation of his family back in England. He had, after all, become an actor. Nobody knows where his new name came from -- perhaps from a novel with a character called the Prince of Karlova. The actor himself claimed his stage name was actually a family name from one of his ancestors who hailed from Eastern Europe. But his only daughter didn't believe it.

     He slowly built up a reputation as a competent actor, specializing in playing the villain in his early movies (he made well over a hundred films in all). He appeared in two hit films of the time: a 1930 prison drama called The Criminal Code, and a 1931 movie Five Star Final, in which he played an unethical newspaper reporter.

     But it was another 1931 film, based on an old novel by Mary Shelley, that made him famous. The mad scientist was played by fellow English actor Colin Clive. The hunchback assistant was portrayed by American actor Dwight Frye (who was also Renfield in Dracula). And the monster himself was played by William H. Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff, who wore a bulky costume with four-inch platform boots, and plenty of makeup.
     

     Boris Karloff reprised his role in Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein, and also appeared in different roles for House of Frankenstein and the 1958 version Frankenstein 1970.   

    Karloff appeared in other movies as well -- Scarface, The Lost Patrol, The Raven, The Body Snatcher, The Tower of London. And in the 1960s he narrated a TV special of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. But he remained best known for his horror films and particularly for his role in Frankenstein.

     Karloff was famous for playing sinister characters in the movies, but in real life he supported many charities, and every year he dressed up as Father Christmas and handed out toys to disabled kids. He was married five times, and had the one daughter by his fourth wife. He spent most of his life in America but never became a citizen. He returned to England in his final years and remained a British subject up until his death in 1969. He also never officially changed his name. All his life, on legal documents, he would sign his name "William H. Pratt, aka Boris Karloff."

     Boris Karloff followed in a rich Hollywood tradition started by Lon Chaney, who gained fame in 1923 as the tortured Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and also played the phantom in Phantom of the Opera. His son, Lon Chaney, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps, playing in The Mummy, The Wolf Man (and also portraying Lennie Small in the 1939 movie version of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men).

     Then there was Bela Lugosi, famous for Dracula, who also appeared with Karloff in The Raven and Son of Frankenstein. The horror hall of fame also includes Vincent Price (The Pit and the Pendulum and The House of Usher); Peter Lorre (The Raven and Beast with Five Fingers); Claude Rains (Invisible Man and The Clairvoyant).

     Most of these old films have been updated and remade over the years. And we, in our contemporary movies, have our own monsters -- vampires, zombies and all those computer-generated ogres that crash across the screen. We also have other modern monsters, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lector. Or maybe our latest monster is The Ebola Virus.

     But they're not quite the same, are they?

     Happy Halloween!