Cancer Journal

 A week or so ago, I sent an email to Jan Carroll, my friend and a loyal reader and commenter of this blog.  I hadn't heard from her for a while and wondered how she was doing.  She was fine but the email prompted some chitchat in which she asked how I do with winter.  I responded that I am not bothered by going out in the cold and the snow but that a childhood in Alaska left me with a residual dread of cars not starting, cars getting stuck, impassable roads.  It's irrational since nowadays, cars start and roads get quickly plowed--at least in Wisconsin.   Jan reported back that she had recently seen a rerun of Northern Exposure, the TV show set in Alaska in which the doctor, Joel, gets as a gift or inherits a Camel hair overcoat that had belonged to his uncle.  She had also just read about my receiving as a gift a camel hair overcoat that had belonged to Archie Bleyer.   Alaska,  a gifted camel hair overcoat?  Coincidence?...

 I have more about Carol--some things I really don't want left untold  but still, stray bits of information. Carol repeated herself a lot.  I was fine with that.  For myself, I know it's hard to remember who you said what to.  If you have something interesting, you don't want to tell it just once on the chance that the one you told it to before is the same one you are telling it to now.  I look at it as a ritual.  Its repetition is part of the deal, not something to get annoyed by.  Anyway, Carol told me five-six times that when barbershop quartettes get together after an event for an informal sing together, it's called an "afterglow."  They could go into the early morning hours.  These people really liked to sing. Carol could recite long portions of a lengthy poem she had memorized in high school.  She did it the first time within the first three minutes of my meeting her and again some more times after that.  Although I am to...