Is Medicare Missing The Boat?

 

 

December 17, 2021

 

Medicare Contact Center Operations

Box 1270

Lawrence, Kansas 66044

 

Dear Medicare

 

In July 2018 I suffered a back injury that likely resulted in me breaking two ribs.  Three months after the accident I began to experience excruciatingly painful and debilitating muscle spasms in the area of the broken ribs.  I visited my primary care physician who diagnosed me with injured muscle. He prescribed a muscle relaxant that did absolutely no good.  A summary of my attempts to fix this problem follows

 

·         Primary Care Physician – October 2018 – Prescribed a muscle relaxant that offered no resolution.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this

·         Primary Care Physician – October 2018 – Ultrasound of kidney to rule out any issues since the spasms were directly over the kidney.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Primary Care Physician – November 2018 – Ultrasound of liver and gall bladder to rule out any issues.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Primary Care Physician – November 2018 – Examination and palpitation to rule out pancreatitis.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Acupuncture Doctor – November 2018 to January 2019 – 20 sessions of acupuncture that provided momentary relief. Medicare or GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Massage Therapist – February 2019 (I paid for this) – Two visits that provided temporary relief

·         Orthopedic Physician specializing in pain – February 2019 through October 2021 – Five trigger point injections of a steroid into the muscle to relieve the pain.  The first two injections each provided 4 months relief.  The third injection provided 3 days relief.  The fourth injection provided 2 days relief.  The fifth and final injection provided 1 day relief.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Physical Therapy – 2020.  Recommended by pain doctor and 8 sessions (all Medicare would cover) provided no change. Medicare paid for all of this.

·         Partners Imaging Center – 2020 - an MRI of my thoracic and lumbar vertebrae to determine if there were any disc bulges or nerve obstructions causing the pain. There were none.  The pain continued.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Emergency Room at Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota – 2020 – A middle of the night ER visit because the pain was so intense, I could not sit down or stand.  I was given 3 different steroids and muscle relaxers and the pain subsided long enough to drive home. Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Primary Care Physician – 2021 – Another office visit to discuss what options I had to get rid of the pain.   The spasms continued. Medicare and Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Pain Doctor – 2021 – Another consultation.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for this visit.

·         Premier Surgery Center – April 2021 – An epidural spine injection of a steroid into the base of the nerve affecting the muscle causing the spasm.  This provided 4 months relief.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all the expenses by the Surgical Center including the Pain Physicians time and expertise, an Anesthesiologist’s time and expertise and an array of surgical nurses who took care of me before and after the procedure.

·         Pain doctor – October 2021 - Consultation paid for by Medicare and GEHA Insurance.

·         Akumin Imagery Center – October 2021 – Another MRI ordered by the Pain Doctor looking to see if something had changed in my spine because none of the treatments were working.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Premier Surgery Center – October 2021 – An epidural spine injection of a steroid into the base of the nerve affecting the muscle causing the spasm.  This provided 3 days relief.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all the expenses by the Surgical Center including the Pain Physicians time and expertise, an Anesthesiologist’s time and expertise and an array of surgical nurses who took care of me before and after the procedure.

·         Pain Doctor – October 2021 - Follow up visit after the latest epidural spine injection that provided 3 days relief.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         Neurologist – November 2021 - Consultation with a neurologist who ruled out any nerve problem.  Following all earlier physicians, he said the problem was with my muscle and the scar tissue that would not go away from the injury in 2018.  The neurologist prescribed a muscle relaxant that did no good.  He then prescribed Gabapentin a drug used for muscle issues related to epilepsy and similar diseases.  It provided partial relief.  Medicare and GEHA Insurance paid for all of this.

·         CVS Pharmacy – 2018 through 2021. I have had multiple prescriptions for drugs prescribed by the above physicians including muscle relaxants, opioids (Oxycodone), Gabapentin, and others.  GEHA Insurance paid for everything except a very minor co-pay on my part.

 

I have not kept my explanation of benefits from Medicare and GEHA Insurance for all of these treatments so I do not know the exact cost of all of the medical treatment I have received. I would guess given the two visits to the surgery center, two MRI’s, 2 Ultrasounds, and visits to primary care physicians and high-priced specialists. that between Medicare and GEHA you have spent at least $15,000 if not more for treatment of a muscle spasm issue that will not go away.

 

At my wits end and tired of living with the constant muscle spasms I did a search on Google using the key words “Deep tissue Laser treatment for muscle spasms.”   Google returned a link to a laser treatment that is fairly new and shows remarkable potential for eliminating muscle spasms.  The only local source for this specific high-energy Laser treatment is Hudson Chiropractic in Sarasota.   This brings us to the final bullet in this letter.

 

·         Hudson Chiropractic – I have had four high-energy Laser treatments in the last 2 weeks.  I have not had a muscle spasm in a week.  Before the Laser treatments I was having spasms at least once every hour and often 5 or 6 times an hour.  Now I have none.  I have two more appointments next week and then we are going into much more infrequent long-term maintenance treatments.   Each treatment costs me $60 because neither Medicare or GEHA Insurance will cover them. 

 

After three long and painful years filled with visits to surgery centers and specialists and emergency rooms and lots of expensive drugs, the issue seems to have been resolved with $240 worth of Laser treatments that neither Medicare or GEHA cover.

 

I was not an economics major or a business major. I was a wildlife biology major. Despite that lack of business education, it seems to me that both Medicare and GEHA Insurance would save a tremendous amount of money if you covered several $60 treatments at a Chiropractor’s office that resolved the issue, instead of tens of thousand of dollars that you did cover that only helped some physicians pay for their children’s college education at Harvard or Yale. 

 

My suggestion is that you consider covering deep tissue Laser treatments.  But that’s just me.

 

 

 

cc:   GEHA – Government Employees Health Association

Holiday Greetings 2021 From The Little Latitudes

 

January 1, 2021, arrived with great fanfare and no hangover (we are too old for those).  We were on the verge of ending Covid and an adult was about to re-enter the White House.  Then the reality of 2021 headed its ugly rear and the year moved by more slowly and less happily than we had hoped.  Plus, the slow pace of aging continued to take its toll.  At least we ended the year fully vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19.  You should be also.

Early February found Cathy in the hospital receiving a much-needed and long-overdue shoulder replacement.  Thanks to superb insurance subsidized all you great taxpayers, her very expensive hospital stay cost us nothing!  Recovery was a long and slow process but at least now she can move her right arm higher than I have ever before seen it raised!  Then in May, the very tip of her nose was operated on to remove a basal cell carcinoma.  Florida is called the Sunshine State for a good reason.  Its also a Dermatologist’s playground.

On July 1, our wedding anniversary, we were in the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital dealing with Craig’s 11^th episode of atrial fibrillation.  It was his first episode after a cardiac ablation six years ago.  Not to be outdone, four months later, almost on his 70^th freaking birthday, Craig was back in Sarasota Memorial with another episode of atrial fibrillation.  This is getting really tiring.

When we weren’t whining about our latest medical issue we were being run ragged by Cathy’s rambunctious grandson Channing.  Don’t try telling him that he is 4 years old because you will be instantly corrected “I’m 4 and a half.”   Now that his next birthday is on the horizon his age is officially “I’m almost 5.”  We continue to spend as much time as possible with him in our swimming pool where we have begun teaching him how to dive – and he is getting really good at it.   I sincerely hope his mother gets him in a swimming program.  He could be an Olympic swimmer someday – maybe when he is 19 and a half. 

Travel in 2021 was much reduced from normal years in part because of Covid.  Craig was able to visit Grandson Garrett in Alaska in April.  In June he returned to his beloved Barrow, Alaska, to do research on birds and he saw 3 Polar Bears!   

In July both Craig and Cathy went to Alaska with our next-door neighbors, so Cathy could fish for salmon with her brother at Seward.  That trip was preceded by a day trip to Barrow so Cathy could see what all the excitement was about.  She still prefers Seward where she slayed several very tasty Silver Salmon.   

Finally in August, Craig gave his daughter Jennifer, son-in-law Ryan and Grandson Garrett an early Christmas present flying all of them (in First Class!) to Nome, Alaska for a few days to look for Musk Ox.  A flock/herd of 23 was the highlight of that trip.

The remainder of 2021 was the usual mundane part of living in Florida and growing old.  Thankfully we have great neighbors (although they are from Minnesota and you know which football team they favor!) and frequent visits and bottles of Pinot Noir next door helped make the year enjoyable.

 Plans for 2022 are rapidly taking shape.   In mid-February we depart for Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a 2-week cruise to southern Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands, Uruguay, and oh…did I mention 2 days in Antarctica?  It will be Craig’s 7^th continent and Cathy’s fifth.  

April will bring a return trip to see Grandson Garrett in Alaska followed by tundra trip in late May and early June to Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, and Barrow.  In July we cruise from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seward Alaska for more salmon fishing on Resurrection Bay.  From there we travel to Kalispell Montana for a week with our Vikings-loving neighbors exploring what few glaciers remain in Glacier National Park.

The other exciting part of 2022 is that Cathy plans to “take this job and shove it” and retire on a soon-to-be-determined date.  That will open up many opportunities for being pummeled by Grandson Channing, and travel to places she has not seen.

The accelerating loss of friends and family to the march of Father Time has taught us that life is too short to hold on to baggage from the past.  From beneath a couple of palm trees on the coast of South Florida, we hope you have a happy and safe and enjoyable Holiday season.  If you suddenly find yourself in Florida, be certain to stop by for a glass of wine.  We would love to see you and get caught up.  There is usually a bottle of Pinot Noir sitting around begging to be consumed.

 Merry Holidays.

Happy Holidays from the Little Latitudes - the 2020 Edition

 

The year 2020 began with so much excitement and promise. We had a scuba diving trip planned to the Cayman Islands for Cathy’s birthday in February.  In July we were flying to Venice, Italy for a 2-week cruise of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas.  Craig had a trip planned to Barrow, Alaska in June, and another Alaska trip in August to chill out with his grandson. This was on top of at least one trip to Minnesota to spend time with granddaughters.  Cathy had plans to attend her niece’s wedding up in South Carolina

All those plans and more changed abruptly in February when “the virus” overtook the world, overwhelmed the health care system, and generally brought everyone’s life to a screeching halt.  We couldn’t even attend the funeral of Cathy’s father following his death in April because of the virus.  It was not a good year!

We were able to squeeze in the Cayman Island trip in late February where we learned that all that advertising in dive magazines about the pristine coral habitats of the Cayman Islands might be false advertising.  Our return from the islands coincided with the first closures of almost everything, and a week after we returned to Sarasota, the Caymans were in lockdown.  Norwegian Cruise Line cancelled our Venice, Italy cruise, and British Airways cancelled our flights there from Miami.  Things never recovered. 

On the positive side having our travel wings clipped allowed more time with Cathy’s grandson Channing who, at 3 years old, has the vocabulary of at least a second grader.  We taught him to swim and after his first unassisted splashes in the pool doing his patented "Shark Swim" we realized we had created a human fish.  It became nearly impossible to keep him out of the water.

Another positive was getting to know our next-door neighbors through properly social distanced afternoon happy hours on the sidewalk in front of our front porch.  The highlight of these visits was playing Pictionary without a rule book, and laughing at each other’s drawings on an eraser board.  With luck you might someday see Cathy’s world-famous St. Bernard drawing or Liz’s sidewalk. Our neighbors are originally from Minnesota; I guess you had to be there to appreciate the experience.

An early November hurricane blew through Sarasota at the same time Craig’s three granddaughters from Minnesota showed up for a week of palm trees and beaches.  Their goal of seeing a rattlesnake wasn’t met which means they will just have to come back and try again another time.

2020 ended with Craig’s knee surgery and with Cathy preparing for shoulder replacement surgery in early 2021.  Getting old is not for the weak.

Development of the Covid vaccine has made 2021 look like it will be a much better year than 2020.  First, an adult will again be residing in the White House on January 20!  We might both be able to go off blood pressure medications when that dream comes true.   

We have plans for another Alaska cruise in July that will end in Seward where we will spend several days fishing for salmon.  Craig has a June trip to Barrow planned to do the bird census he wanted to conduct in 2020.  A little farther off we are booked on a cruise from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Antarctica for Cathy’s birthday trip in February 2022. 

As another year comes to a close, we send you season’s greetings and lowered blood pressure from beneath a palm tree on Florida’s Suncoast.  Let us know if your 2021 plans include time on a Florida beach.  We would love to see you – well – most of you anyway!

 

Happy Holidays

 

 

Donnie Deductions Has Covid-19 !!!!!!

 Joyous early morning correspondence with the Porcine Pussy Grabber

Craig Faanes

Sarasota, Florida 34232

October 2, 2020

 

Donnie Deductions

Chief Pussy Grabber

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

 

Dear Donnie

I was mimicking you this morning, sitting on the toilet (although mine is not made of gold) sending out Tweets, when I learned the exciting news that you and Slovenian Barbie have Covid-19!!!  How ironic, huh, Donnie?

After all these months of claiming Coronavirus was a “Chinese Hoax” that would go away “like a miracle” once the temperatures warmed, and stating emphatically that masks won’t help protect you from the virus, you and the First Bimbo caught it!  I have to admit that I spontaneously ejaculated when I read you have the virus! 

Now that you have contracted the hoax what are your plans for recovery?  Will you be injecting Clorox bleach?  Have you increased your intake of Hydroxychloroquine tablets? Will Mike Pence shove a bright light up your ass to cleanse your system of the virus?  There are so many cures you have touted for others to use, I’m just curious what you will be using.

As exciting as this news is to me and to the majority of Americans, I think it comes at a rather ironic time.  Just a couple nights ago you made an unmitigated fool of yourself on international television by acting like a spoiled brat during the debate with President Biden.  During that debate you refused to denounce white supremacy, and despite Don Junior having an obvious addiction to opioids, you chose to attack Hunter Biden for his drug dependency.  For all of that you received a mountain of well-deserved criticism.  Your poll numbers tanked and everyone but Fox News claimed you lost the debate miserably.  Then just yesterday it was revealed that the Slovenian Barbie said “who gives a fuck” about Christmas “stuff”.  This from the wife of the person who claims there is a war on Christmas.

Now, after these major mistakes on your part you announce you have Covid and you and the Slovenian Barbie will be in quarantine for 14 days.  That will make it impossible for you to participate in the next debate won’t it?  You won’t be able to make a total ass of yourself again while further embarrassing the United States.  This begs the question – do you really have Covid or are you claiming this as a way to get out of a debate?  How convenient.

I won’t believe you have Covid until you release the results of your Covid test.  Will that release happen soon, or is the IRS also auditing that report?

Here’s hoping you enjoy being intubated and breathing through a ventilator (one that you didn’t send to China back in March).   It might not cure you but at least you won’t be able to stand in front of thousands of unmasked fans denigrating everyone who disagrees with you.

Today is the first day in your nearly 4-year-old administration that I find myself doing back flips from the joy I feel.  Covid-19 could not have happened to a more deserving waste of protoplasm. 

Please spend the rest of the day coughing wildly on everyone you come near.  It would be especially helpful if you coughed on Stephen Miller.  And, what about Lindsey Graham?  Can he contract Covid while on his knees?

Love and kisses,

Craig Faanes

 

cc:  Secret Service

cc:  FBI

Sixty Years Ago This Morning in a Wisconsin Forest

Sixty years ago this morning, October 1, 1960, dawned clear and cool and crisp on my grandparents farm northwest of Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Leaves in the butternut trees across the gully from their barn were turning what Aldo Leopold once referred to as "smoky gold" and the morning air had a distinct feel of the fast approaching (and at the time seemingly endless) Wisconsin winter. 

Not only was today the first day of the new month but also the first day of squirrel hunting season in Wisconsin. On October 1 1960 you needed to be 12 years old to be able to obtain and carry a small-game hunting license that allowed you to hunt things like squirrels, rabbits, and ruffed grouse in the state. I was only eight years old and in Mrs. Moe's fourth grade class, but my rapidly approaching ninth birthday was just 30 days away. Despite this slight difference between what was the legal age to hunt and my actual age, my grandparents gave me a single shot .410 gauge shotgun and set me off through the butternuts in search of my first animal. It was a ritual of passage in my part of the state and certainly a ritual of passage in my extended family. Hunting by myself (and not shooting off some appendage) and successfully bagging my first critter was a sure sign that I was on the path to becoming something. Not sure what it was but I was headed there. 

According to the Weather Channel, sunrise that day was at 7:05 a.m. and about 7:15, just as my grandparents were settling in for the daily morning ritual of milking their cows, Craig the intrepid (and illegal!) squirrel hunter stepped into the woods. I distinctly remember walking across the gully and up the small hill to the northernmost point in the butternuts. There, mimicking the way I had watched my dad and my uncles scour the woods before looking for squirrels I set off in search of my first squirrel. I made a wide swath across the northernmost part of the butternuts making sure to shuffle my feet in the growing bed of leaves that carpeted the forest floor. I had learned that also as a way to spook a squirrel into running for cover in trees. So far nothing worked and no squirrels appeared. 

As I moved south through the butternuts I still remember hearing the sound of the milking machines working away in the barn and caught a glimpse of my grandma checking out the south door of the barn to make sure I hadn't shot myself - yet. My ramblings across the woods produced nothing until about 7:40 when to the south I caught a glimpse of a gray squirrel as it darted along the floor of the woods headed for the relative security of a butternut tree that had three stumps. I watched excitedly as the squirrel leaped onto the side of the tree and then for some unexplained reason pointed itself down toward the ground instead of up toward relative safety higher in the tree. Standing its ground, the squirrel began saying all sorts of derogatory things at me in squirrel language I moved forward to what I felt was the right distance and I stopped. 

As if it was yesterday I remember quickly bringing my shotgun to my arm, getting the butt caught in the extra clothing provided by my adult uncle's tan hunting jacket (I had to be fashion correct on this important day) and then took sight down the barrel of the gun at the squirrel. What happened next is a bit of a blur. I remember having the bead of the gun sight on the squirrel's head as I pulled back the hammer on the gun's safety. I sat there and watched. Then out of the blue, just as the squirrel made one last defiant pump of its tail, I fired my only shot. The tiny shotgun made a muffled poof sound and instantly the squirrel tumbled from the side of the tree and lay on its back "tits up on the prairie" as I would later say about ducks when I lived in North Dakota. I remember racing up to the squirrel and taking it in my hands and looking at it from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail. 

This was my one of the first (unknown to me at the time) indications of a forthcoming life as a biologist who had to check out everything. I also remember that, despite this not being the first squirrel I had ever held before, this one of "mine" seemed so much smaller when I held it than when I would see them darting around in the woods being squirrels. The sun had just climbed up over the top of the trees on my uncle's nearby farm and the rays of sunlight were shining across the pasture on my grandparent’s land (where my parents ashes are now spread) and everything was lit up in the butternuts. My grandma had heard the shot and was looking out the barn door again, this time probably worried that I had shot myself. Instead I stood there holding up the squirrel for her to see and for some unexplained reason I yelled and asked what time it was. The clock said 7:45 a.m. Central Time. 

The squirrel was the first of what would be hundreds of them I harvested in my youth. From squirrels I graduated to ruffed grouse and a couple of years later (and still too young to legally buy a license) I started hunting white-tailed deer on my uncle's farm. My success rate with them wasn't like squirrels but it makes for another story. As I grew through my childhood and my adolescence there were two things that became constants in my life. One was baseball and the other was the annual fall ritual of hunting. It was because of hunting that I developed the fierce desire to protect the earth that led to my choosing wildlife biology as a career and spending almost all my life for more than 32 years trying to protect habitats from the ravages of human population growth. Its something that non-hunters and anti-hunters seem unable to comprehend. "How can you love wildlife and kill it" you're often asked. I'm not sure how. It just is what it is. And it all started with that gray squirrel 60 years ago this morning. 

 I continued hunting until 1982. Those last years were on the prairie of North Dakota where all of October and into November from 1979 through 1982 were devoted to hunting ducks, geese, sharp-tailed grouse, gray partridge, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, and anything else that was legal. The last day I ever hunted anything was in early November 1982 when a group of us went after ducks and geese on the prairie wetlands west of Jamestown. We took along my Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Chester. At the end of the day we stopped at a small wetland near Cleveland and Rich Madson took a picture of Chester sitting in the wetland vegetation scanning the sky for ducks. It was his last hunt and mine. A few months later a divorce rocked my world. As part of it I had no place to keep Chester and had to take him home to Wisconsin and my parent’s farm. After Chester was gone my desire to hunt left me and I've never picked up a gun since. 

Sixty years ago this morning was a different story. I left my grandparent’s house that morning a neophyte and half an hour later I was a hunter. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me and I relive that moment every year on this day.

What Good is a Wood Rat?

 

Key Largo Wood Rat. Image downloaded from the Internet with no attribution

I spent 6 months in 1992 on loan to the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges where I tried to figure out how to reverse the negative impressions of the public toward the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Our presence was a giant pain in the public’s collective ass because we were protecting endangered species of plants and animals and the highly independent Florida Keys residents, many of them future Tea Party Republicans, wanted nothing to do with us or our message.

For my study I had a series of 20 questions that I asked pro-environment people, anti-environment people, and those I assumed were in the middle (restaurant owners etc.) about the Fish and Wildlife Service.  My basic premise was “What has the Fish and Wildlife Service done right in past, what have we done wrong in the past, and what can we do better in the future?”

One steaming hot June day I talked with Shirley, the President of the Lower Keys Realtor’s Association.  We sat on the deck of her opulent house overlooking the water on Summerland Key and I grilled her with my questions.  A huge issue at that time was the Lower Keys Rice Rat, an obscure species with highly restrictive habitat requirements that remained at the edge of extinction in a few wetlands in the Lower Keys. 

When my interview reached questions about protecting endangered species, Shirley went for what she thought was my throat. 

“When the first person is told they can’t build a house because of a god damned rat,” she bellowed, “there is going to be a holy war in the Lower Keys.”

Giving Shirley time for her blood pressure to drop down out of the stratosphere I said, “Shirley, what does it tell you about the quality of the human environment when a rat is an endangered species?”  Shirley was dumbfounded and stopped in her tracks.  She pondered my question for a minute and said, “I never thought of that.”

 A week later she showed up at the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuge and inquired about becoming a volunteer.

Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife biology and the first professor of wildlife biology at the incomparable University of Wisconsin once opined “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”

In other words, who are we to decide if a plant or animal has “value’ beyond its mere existence?

I thought of that saying and of my long-ago conversation with Shirley the Lower Keys real estate agent this morning when I read this story about research on the Key Largo Wood Rat, an endangered species that exists precariously on one island in the upper Florida Keys.   Research on the rat not only helps us understand it place in a functioning ecosystem, but also may lead to breakthrough’s in understanding how to protect human health.

Long ago at a Lion’s Club meeting in Palco, Kansas, I was asked by a grizzled old man if I thought it was right for a lizard to halt development of a water project. 

“What’s a skink?” he asked me after waving his arthritic hand in the air for several minutes.

I said, “A skink is a species of lizard.”

He replied, “Do you think a lizard should be allowed to stop a water development project?”

Yes, I do, but I wasn’t going to tell him that so I probed him and discovered that a state endangered species of skink was getting in the way of yet another small watershed development project and this man thought it was the worst thing since the atomic bomb.  He completed his explanation by asking me if I thought it was a good idea.

Rather than answering him I asked him if he knew what an armadillo is, saying “it’s a little animal that spends most of its life dead along the sides of roads.”  He knew.  I then said, “Armadillos are the only species of mammal that cannot contract leprosy.  They carry the virus in their blood system but produce a chemical that keeps the virus from growing and causing the disease.  If fact sir, there is enough of that chemical in one armadillo to treat seven human victims of leprosy.  Now do you know what is in that skink?”

He didn’t know.  I then replied asking, “Do you want to take the chance?”

Answering soto voce he said, “No.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “That’s why we have the Endangered Species Act, to keep all of the parts no matter how seemingly inconsequential together.”  I then asked for the next question.

Questions kept flying until well after 10:00 p.m. and I answered each of them to the best of my ability.  Eventually the meeting began to break up and when perhaps only 30 people remained my original skink questioner walked up to me.  Figuring he was about to verbally abuse me as had happened so many times before, I was surprised when he stuck out his hand to shake mine and said “I want to thank you for opening my eyes.”

I gave him my stoic bureaucratic exterior look saying, “Thank you sir. I’m happy to hear that.”  Inside however I was giving him two thumbs up thinking to myself “He got the point!  He heard the message!” 

Maybe with luck tomorrow morning he would be in the local coffee shop chatting with his buddies and asking them if skinks can prevent leprosy and what would happen if we lost it. 

The same response fits the Key Largo Wood Rat and its bacteria laden nests, or a skink on the prairie of western Kansas or any number of other species that seem "useless" to human kind.  Whatever the avenue is that works to get the message across I am all in favor of using it.

 

I Shot My First Sharp-tailed Grouse 41 Years Ago Today

 

Male Sharp-tailed Grouse.  Photo by Joanne Bartkus

Growing up in northern Wisconsin, it was always a treat to find a Sharp-tailed Grouse.  At one time they were rather common in the Cheesehead State but the combined tragedies of fire suppression and conversion of grasslands to human housing and endless strip malls, took a substantial toll on Sharp-tailed Grouse distribution.

The first Sharp-tailed Grouse I ever saw was on April 10, 1968,  at the Crex Meadows Wildlife Management Area near Grantsburg, Wisconsin.  With my freshly minted permanent Wisconsin drivers license in my wallet, I drove over to Crex very early that morning.  It was a Wednesday and yes, I skipped school and not for the first time. I had heard about a dancing ground (a display ground) for Sharp-tailed Grouse there and I wanted to see the birds displaying.  Arriving well before sunrise I heard the mysterious hooting and pattering of Sharp-tailed Grouse displaying males. There were six males on this lek and I watched them trying to get lucky.  Later that morning I saw my first Sandhill Cranes.  It was a memorable day.

During my remaining 11 years as a Wisconsin resident, I found Sharp-tailed Grouse very sparingly.  I remember a pair in a Douglas County jack pine barren in 1971, displaying males at the Mead Wildlife Management Area in Wood and Portage counties on April 30, 1977, and additional birds at Crex Meadows on several occasions.  Most surprising was a pair (probably hatch year birds) on the Oakridge Waterfowl Production Area near New Richmond, St. Croix County, on October 15, 1977.  Historical records suggested these were the first Sharp-tailed Grouse seen in St. Croix County in nearly 80 years.  To my knowledge they have not been seen in St. Croix County since that freak encounter.

Until 1979, finding a Sharp-tailed Grouse was a major accomplishment and something that didn’t happen every year.  That scenario changed  on January 20, 1979, when I moved to the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, North Dakota.  There I found myself in Sharp-tailed Grouse nirvana.  Staff at the Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge near Pingree, about 20 miles north of Jamestown, set up a viewing blind on a Sharp-tailed Grouse lek and in April 1979 I watched grouse dancing on several brisk prairie mornings.

I was an avid hunter in those formative years.  It all began with a Gray Squirrel I shot in Barron County, Wisconsin, from the side of a butternut tree behind my grandparent’s barn on October 1, 1960.  I was a month shy of 9 years old, a mere three years too young to be hunting legally.  There were very few things my grandparents looked the other way on, but one of them was a grandson's age and his ability to handle a gun.  From that morning forward, I was fanatic about hunting and would start in June counting down the days until the opening day of duck hunting season in October.  

For hunters in the 1970s and 1980s, North Dakota was paradise.  Name something you wanted to hunt and you could usually find a season for it somewhere in the Peace Garden State.  I still remember a day in October 1979, when I began the morning on Sibley Lake, Kidder County.  Hunting was legal at 7:00 a.m. and by 7:11 I had a limit of four male American Wigeon and a male Redhead.  I then set up decoys on the south shore of the lake and quickly shot a limit of five Snow Geese.  Beginning my trek home, I harvested a limit of 3 Sharp-tailed Grouse and 10 Gray Partridge and I was back in my office by noon.  Days of hunting success like that one were not uncommon.

Although waterfowl hunting was the main focus every October and November, what I enjoyed the most was hunting Sharp-tailed Grouse.  I shot my first one just after sunrise on this day, September 17, in 1979.

The Mount Moriah Waterfowl Production Area (now renamed in memory of my famous colleague Bob Stewart) is one square mile (640 acres) of native prairie and an abundance of wetlands.  There are 105 wetland basins on that one-square mile patch of ground – one of the highest wetland densities in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Dakotas, Montana, and adjacent Canada.

Satellite image of Mount Moriah Waterfowl Production Area downloaded from Google Earth.

Chester, my Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and I stepped onto the grassland of Mount Moriah shortly before sunrise on September 17, 1979, the opening day of Sharp-tailed Grouse season.  I had extensive experience (but not extensive luck) hunting Ruffed Grouse in Wisconsin but had no idea how to hunt Sharp-tailed Grouse.  Chester and I began our quest in the southwest corner of the Waterfowl Production Area, then walked toward the center of the area before turning right and walking east into the rising sun.

Chester sensed the birds before I did.  His ears always perked up in a certain way when he found any bird for me, and he showed the same behavior on Mount Moriah.  I took a couple steps forward and three Sharp-tailed Grouse erupted at my feet.  I leveled off on one bird, shot, and watched it tumble from the sky.  Turning on the other two I fired two shots in desperation because they had already flown out of my range.  Chester very excitedly bounced over to the grouse’s resting place, and with the bird in his mouth, returned to me. 

I was quite proud of myself and placed the bird in the game pouch of my hunting jacket.  Chester and I continued walking over the prairie for another hour flushing seven more Sharp-tailed Grouse of which two didn’t see the sun set that day.  With my first limit of grouse in my pocket by 8:30 that morning, Chester and I returned home.  It was the first of many times my dog and I returned home with a limit of Sharp-tailed Grouse in my game pouch.

There, my daughter Jennifer, who then was two years old, couldn’t take her hands or her attention off the birds as I prepared to clean them.  This continued to be a pattern on subsequent hunts when I carried her in a kid-pack on my back as we tromped across the prairie waiting for Chester to flush a grouse.  Invariably when one did, a tiny hand would jet past my right eye and I would see a tiny finger shaking as the voice in my ear yelled “Grouse, Daddy!”  When I missed a bird, she was as disappointed as my dog was but when I scored Jennifer instantly called it “my grouse” and insisted on carrying the bird for the rest of the hunt and many times in her arms the entire way home after we finished for the day.  Three years later her sister Dana reacted the same way as Jennifer used to now that Jennifer was walking beside me and Dana was in the kid pack.

Sharp-tailed Grouse remained my most preferred quarry for hunting during my remaining time in North Dakota.  When I lost my dog in 1983, however, my desire to hunt evaporated and I have not picked up a shotgun or rifle since that year.

After leaving North Dakota I lived in Georgia, the Bahamas, Nebraska, southern California, northern Virginia, and now in retirement on the west coast of Florida.  Only the six years of that period spent in Nebraska were in Sharp-tailed Grouse range and I have seen this species only three times since I moved from Nebraska in February, 1993.  Twice when I returned to Nebraska to watch migrating Sandhill Cranes, I ventured north of Grand Island to the Taylor Ranch where both Sharp-tailed Grouse and Greater Prairie-Chicken display alongside each other. 

The last one I saw erupted at my feet while walking across the tundra of Denali National Park, Alaska, in September 2017.  When that single bird flushed in front of me, I instinctively pulled up an imaginary shotgun and fired an imaginary shot just like I did for real 41 years ago this morning.  The Alaska bird flew away unharmed.  The North Dakota bird wasn’t that lucky but its demise made me a feverish advocate for protecting habitats where Sharp-tailed Grouse continue to survive.

Why Bob Woodward Kept Silent about tRump's Covid Comments - An Example from Wildlife Law Enforcement

 

People are Monday Morning Quarterbacking Bob Woodward's decision not to reveal to the public what he knew about tRump's inaction on Covid-19 last winter. The real outrage should be against tRump but its easier to blame the messenger at times. Although Woodward had no obligation to reveal anything to anyone there might be a good reason for his silence. An example from wildlife law enforcement might explain it.

John Cooper, a Special Agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Pierre, South Dakota, was sent to coastal Louisiana to work undercover on hunters who were killing large numbers of Snow Geese. There was also some evidence the geese were being illegally sold in food markets. In the late 1980s when this happened, the maximum number of snow geese a hunter could possess in a single day was five birds.

John told me about watching one hunter kill more than 200 snow geese before he took any action. As soon as he killed the 6th goose, John could have cited him but he chose to wait. Allowing the hunter to kill 200 snow geese made the case that much stronger in court. Showing a judge 200 dead geese when the limit was 5 was pretty strong evidence the hunter knew what he was doing and he kept at it.

I wonder if the same can't be said for the Porcine Pussy Grabber, his comments to Woodward about Covid-19, and Woodward's decision to keep a lid on the information? tRump made it obvious on February 7 that he knew exactly what was going on with Covid but Woodward just let him keep talking. Doing so now provides us with abundantly clear evidence tRump knew what the truth was and chose to look the other way with no regard for facts - just like that goose hunter with 200 more geese than the limit allowed.

I Lost My Innocence 50 Years Ago Today

Fifty short years ago today, at 12:27 p.m. Eastern time on May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard committed murder on the campus of Kent State University in Portage County, Ohio.  It was the single most important formative event in my young life and one that changed my personal and political views forever.

I was a freshman on the University of Wisconsin River Falls campus that day. I remember it like it was yesterday. One of the first warm days of spring that year and not a cloud in the sky. I was back in my dorm room, 209 Johnson Hall, studying when someone on the floor yelled "They're killing students in Ohio!" I thought at first it was just a normal afternoon drunken outburst on the floor. Then someone walked in with his transistor radio set on WCCO Radio from Minneapolis. They gave complete coverage of the carnage, at least as much as they knew at the time. As we all sat around listening to the news a feeling of gloom set over us.

Granted, UW River Falls wasn't a hotbed of political activity in those days but we had experienced our share of campus protesting of the intractable unwinnable, unnecessary war in Viet Nam. Now Richard Nixon had expanded the war into Cambodia and our few campus activists were more agitated. I wondered as did most of the guys on my floor, if the Wisconsin National Guard was going to show up and start shooting us.

Kent State happened because of the over reaction of the Ohio National Guard in response to legally assembled (according to the United States Constitution ) students exercised their legal right (according to the United States Constitution) to protest an illegal war (the President never asked Congress for a formal declaration of war therefore it wasn't a legal war) and its expansion. I will never forgive the Ohio National Guard for what they did that day fifty years ago.

When it finally sank into my thick skull that students were being killed for exercising their rights, and the government that sanctioned this killing was a Republican government, I rejected all of the conservative mantra that my ultra-conservative mother ever spewed.  A life-long member of the John Birch Society, if she was alive today my mother would be one of the Tea Bag anarchists who think Sarah Palin has an IQ greater than a cucumber and that Faux "News" is fair and balanced. The next day May 5, 1970, I started to let my hair grow, I participated in my first anti-war sit in. My politics and my outlook were forever changed.

Just two days before the massacre, Richard M. Nixon, made the following statement regarding the campus unrest. Never once in his statement did Nixon acknowledge that it was HIS actions that were causing the unrest.

“You know, you see these bums, you know, blowin' up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are, burnin' up the books, I mean, stormin' around about this issue, I mean, you name it - get rid of the war, there'll be another one. -- Richard Nixon, New York Times, May 2, 1970

Fuck you Richard Nixon. It is my sincerest hope to one day piss on your grave.

Despite the tragedy that day there were some positive things that came out of it. Most importantly for me is the very real fact that my political beliefs were forever altered on that fateful day. In response I have voted in every election since my first election in 1972 (the first vote I ever cast was for George McGovern and I feel proud of that vote). In that election I voted a straight Democratic ticket. I have never missed an election since that day in November 1972 and I have never once voted for anyone who was not with the Democratic Party.

I would eat a steady diet of used kitty litter before I would vote for a Republican. Ever.

Another positive thing that came out of the murders was this song with its haunting music and haunting lyrics written by Neil Young.

On May 4 1990 while living in Grand Island Nebraska I contacted every radio station in town and in the surrounding area and asked them to play, at 11:27 a.m. Central Time that morning (the exact minute the murders took place at Kent State 20 years earlier) "Ohio" by Neil Young as a memorial to the fallen students. All the stations agreed to do it but one where I was told by the programming director "We don't have the music or I would play it." I asked if they'd play it if I brought the music to them. They would.

I was standing outside the music store in Conestoga Mall at 10:00 a.m. when the door opened. I darted in and purchased the vinyl album and raced down to the south side of town to the radio station. I arrived there by 10:30 with 57 minutes to spare. Breathlessly I told the woman behind the counter that her station was going to be playing this song as a memorial to the murders 20 years earlier. She looked at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face not understanding a thing I'd said. Finally I asked her age. "I'm 19" she said. She wasn't even born when the single greatest formative moment in my life occurred. I would be afraid to ask the question again today.

Finally the murders at Kent State were the catalyst in 1988 for the University to establish the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence.  The mission statement for the Institute reads:

The Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence:

* promotes interdisciplinary research on the causes and prevention of violence
* engages in the design, implementation and evaluation of community-based programs for violence prevention
* trains teachers, law enforcement personnel and other professionals on principles and practices related to violence prevention
* helps bridge the gap between science and practice to effectively inform public policy related to violence prevention

Some good has come out of the insanity of that day after all.

In 2005 I traveled from Washington DC to Kent State to be there for the 35th anniversary of the murders. Stepping from my car in a University parking lot I asked a couple I saw walking "where's the Hill?" Without batting an eye they pointed to the west. As I walked toward the hallowed grounds that are the site of the murders several students came up to me and asked "were you there?" I told them I was there in spirit alone that day.

On getting near the Hill I found four curious areas cordoned off with light fixtures. Asking what they were I learned that they were permanent memorials that marked the outline of where each of the four kids died that day. The first one I found was Alison Krause.

Standing on the Hill overlooking the scene I met a mother and her college freshman son. The son was showing mom the campus and brought her to the Hill. I saw them and made a comment about the tragic deaths that day. The mom, about my age, snapped back in reply saying "Those fucking kids DESERVED what they got that day."

Shocked I said "you mean Jeffrey Miller deserved to die for protesting something that was wrong?" Mom said "You're god-damned right he did. All of them did."

Her son then jumped on her case and backed up what I was saying. They walked away yelling at each other. I guess, at least 15 years ago, there was still a lot of angst and anger on the Hill.

And a note for any Vietnam Veterans reading this post - know up front that our protests were designed to get you home and we didn't even know you at the time. We were mobilized against the war, not against you.
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Now the Kent State University Historic Site has been established and dedicated on the campus as a memorial to the tragedy of that day. I hope the memorial is completely successful in helping America to Never EVER forget Kent State.