Notebook
July 18th, 2014 by Gary Osberg

Good morning from Collegeville,

The scene is the parking lot of the credit union after Walter White has withdrawn cash and handed it to Jesse Pinkman with instructions to buy the RV so that they can start cooking meth. Jesse: “Yo, Mr. White, tell me why you’re doing this?” Mr. White: “Why do you do it?” Jesse: “Money”. Mr. White: “There you go” Jesse: “Nah! Someone like you with a giant stick up his ___, at age 60, just goes out and breaks bad? It doesn’t make sense!” Mr. White: “I’m 50.”

I have just started watching ‘Breaking Bad’ for the second time. After my own brush with the “Big C”, the show takes on a different angle. The viewer is torn between empathy for the high school teacher, with lung cancer, gone bad and disdain for his illegal activity and the lives he wrecks.

In my case, what I thought was a liver spot on my chin turned out to be “Lentigo Maligna, cannot exclude focal lentigo maligna melanoma”. I was visiting my doctor for a rash on my arm and he suggested that I have the dermatologist take a look at the brown spot on my chin. On May 12th Dr. Labine did a scrape and on the Friday of Memorial weekend, I spent the day at the St. Cloud Hospital Surgical Center. At 6:30 that evening they wheeled me out to Barby’s car and sent me on my way. I looked like Frankenstein. They had also cut into my neck to take out a lymph node just to be sure. The results are all good. No melanoma was detected. The lesson my children is: Get it checked out. Don’t put it off.

The APHC show this week is a rebroadcast of a show from June 4, 1994 celebrating the re-opening of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. Special guests include the Everly Brothers singing “Blues Stay Away From Me” and Chet Atkins plays “Mystery Train”, plus music from Vince Gill, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Mark O’Connor and an appearance by the Hopeful Gospel Quartet. The News From Lake Wobegon features the opening of the Whippets baseball season. Enjoy the show.

“No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.” George MacDonald

Comments are closed.