Category Archives: Opinion/Editorial

As I write this, I’m seated on a flight from Chicago to Ft. Myers, Florida in early December. The thing that struck me as I boarded was the overwhelming preponderance of old people on this flight. Now granted, I’m no spring chicken myself. I’ve noticed there are very few age categories below mine on survey forms anymore, but these folks fell into that category at the very bottom of the list. The one that starts with a really high number followed by a plus sign. I think some of these folks were traveling to Florida for a reunion of participants in Ponce de Leon’s original journey to find the Fountain of Youth. Back when the Everglades was just a damp spot. I’ve never been on a flight before where they made you complete a Do Not Resuscitate form before taking your seat. When we deplaned, the elderly gentleman in front of me stopped and asked the pilot (who was no whipper snapper himself), “Where did you learn to fly?” To which the pilot responded, “During the war.” The old guy glanced back up at him and said, “Oh yeah, the first or second?” Now I’m not saying that the airline catered to this specific clientele, but they served a snack halfway through the flight that consisted of Jell-O and what appeared to be either prune juice or Geritol. After taking my seat, I glanced up at the overhead panel housing the flight attendant call button. There, next to the button, was a sign saying, “Brought to you by Life Alert.” The airline had removed all the seatback monitors and replaced them with portable oxygen generators and defibrillators. Ok, I admit, I may be taking some minor liberties with the facts in the reporting of this event, but I do so to illustrate a point – a lot of old people fly to Florida in December!

Okay kids, this week I’m going to teach you about irony. My apartment complex has teamed up with the Salvation Army to provide Christmas gifts for local kids. They set up an Angel Tree in the apartment lobby with tags that provide the kid’s gender, age and wish list. That all seemed well organized and easy enough. However, as I explored the gift requests, it soon became obvious that I was woefully out of touch with today’s kids. I wasn’t recognizing any of the things on those tags! Now I know why my grandmother just gave me underwear and a $5 bill. Anyway, I digress. Way on the backside of the tree, I finally found a tag that said, “board games.” I grew up playing board games. This felt right! The tag even listed the games the child wanted: Risk and Aggravation. I immediately headed off to Walmart with visions of doing something good with very little effort on my part. Now, you have to understand, I have a visceral dislike for the toy section of any large department store around Christmas time. Setting my fear aside, however, I approached the toy section and located the game board aisle. This looked promising. They had every game imaginable! After my second pass down the aisle, I found Risk on a lower shelf. Unfortunately, after two more trips up and down the aisle, Aggravation was no where to be found. Although somewhat perturbed, I was also somehow buoyed with the thought that a game I grew up with was still so popular that it was sold out at Walmart. No big problem, there was a Target right around the corner. I could still do good with only a little more effort (I needed shampoo anyway and Target has my brand). However, to my incredible disappointment, Target also did not have Aggravation! To make a long story only slightly shorter, over the next 3 days I visited 3 Walmarts, a Target, and a Kohls. All to no avail. It suddenly struck me that the lack of Aggravation was incredibly aggravating! And that, boys and girls, is irony. P.S. Standing in the middle of my third Walmart, I ordered Aggravation online from Amazon. Two days from now, it will show up magically on my doorstep.

The origin of Doc Tales was the opportunity to share some humorous or profound statements overheard at various meetings. This week, I’m going to return to those roots. I recently attended the US Animal Health Association meeting and it was a treasure trove of musings. Following are a couple of things that made folks laugh (or at least go “hmmm”). Thanks for sharing. During a question and answer session involving a highly technical topic, the presenter responded to a question by saying, “I don’t know the answer, but I assure you it’s quite serious!” Upon walking up in the middle of a conversation between two state veterinarians, one was overheard saying, “I bet I can run faster sacred than you can mad!”

I recently attended a meeting involving a recap of the national African swine fever exercise held a few weeks ago. USDA was describing the involvement of the diagnosticians at the Plum Island Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory during the exercise noting that they substituted fruits for various tissues to simulate sample submissions. When queried further, USDA justified the substitutions by relating that, “as we all know, prunes are the most spleen-like of the fruits.” At first it seemed odd, but in retrospect, I think substituting fruits for tissues seems perfectly acceptable in an animal disease lab named “Plum.”

Ok, I missed a couple of weeks so I’m going to make up for it with an exchange between Sue Schulteis in the AASV office and Kent Schwartz at the ISU VDL. This one is just for the geeks in all of us.

During a recent discussion on depopulation methods, the point was made that, “you just don’t come back from 410 volts.”

October is National Dental Hygiene month. According to the American Dental Association, you should brush and floss your teeth at least twice a day. As my pappy used to say, “It’s better to floss ’em than to toss ’em!” This has been a public service message brought to you by Doc Tales.

I took a little vacation time this week to attend a conference put on by a hobbyist group to which I have belonged for many years. Having never before attended their annual conference, I had no idea what to expect. I walked into a small meeting room and was greeted by about 10 club members standing by the registration table. As I approached, they all looked up and in unison yelled, “Harry!” And, yes, in true Cheers form, they immediately offered me a beer. Although I was temporarily taken aback, it became quickly obvious that I was the first new face they had seen at this conference in quite a long time. A glance around the room highlighted that, among the 40 or so attendees, there were only about 3 of us that weren’t actually old enough to drive on the day I was born! I heard one particularly elderly statesman sitting up front “whisper” to his neighbor, “Do you think that’s him, the one with all the hair and semi-tight skin?”

As I write this, Hurricane Dorian is bearing down on North Carolina. It occurred to me earlier today as I was shopping for survival supplies that people in NC don’t need meteorologists to forecast the weather — just flip flops and a grocery store. One inch of snow: your toes are cold and there’s no bread or milk. Category 5 hurricane: your toes are wet and there’s no beer or wine.

Long time AASV member Dr. Gregg BeVier has just published a new paperback, Prescriptive Thoughts for an Enriched Life.