Antarctic Anecdotes

  One of the podcasts I listen to while trodding the treadmill is Alan Alda’s “Clear and Vivid:   Conversations about Communicating and Connecting.”   At the end of each interview, he asks his guests seven questions.   In case I’m ever famous, I’ve got my answers lined up.   Being on his podcast is on my Wish List, along with being the Guest Celebrity on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” showing up as a clue in a Will Shortz crossword puzzle, and lamenting how no political party wants a post-middle age white moderate male on Margaret Hoover’s reboot of “Firing Line.”   I’ve given up on winning the Pulitzer Prize for humor, although it would be fun to be known as The Dave Barry of Medicine.   One of my prize possessions is a book my Dad had him sign inscribed, “To Howard, my idol, Dave Barry.”    Question one of the seven inquiries is “What is something you wish you really understood?” and I would really like to know how things work.   Take ...

    Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. They paved paradise, to put up a parking lot. -          Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi Joni Mitchell was right. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. That’s why Tuesday, June 7 was such a sad day for us here at the pole. It was the day the last egg ran out. I’ve often been asked friends and family about how we eat here.   Besides the obvious answer…with a knife and fork, just like at home…the food has been more than a pleasant surprise.   Someone here long ago learned the lesson that if an army marches on its’ stomach, then Polies thrive on theirs.   Our Galley Staff includes a chef, a sous chef, a baker, and a couple of stewards.   As befits the Island of Misfit Toys we call the Pole, each has a background story all their own.   The chef is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who got tired of t...

Perhaps you’ve heard this one. Antarctica is a harsh content. It’s the highest, driest, coldest continent on earth, and the place most inhospitable to descendants of the small hairy bipeds that once scampered about the African plains.   We’ve already noted that as creatures who evolved in warmer climes nearer the sea, there’s a host of physiologic stressors to life at the South Pole. In addition, one can add a virtual cornucopia of psychologic challenges, given that humans are used to things like night and day, personal mobility, and living in kinship groups.   These factors and others have been implicated in mental health issues at the extremes of the earth.   As our winter ensues, and our story progresses, it’s helpful to think about what’s going on in our heads as well as our hands and our hearts.   There’s a long history of mental health concerns with in the annals of the continent.   The Belgica was the first ship known to become frozen in the ice and fo...