Thursday, August 14, 2014

Just a Fellow I worked with

A few decades ago in my profession I took a considered turn, from clinical to administrative. Turned out it was a bad idea, and the gig I liked less in my 45 years of working. As Director of Clinical Services I had oversee of 9 departments, direction, budgets, personnel, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. There was this one guy, though, that made it easier for me.

I posted about him earlier, about not trying to play practical jokes on a pathologist, titled I think "Don't Screw with a Pathologist". Don N., the hospital pathologist, medical examiner for the county, and a faculty at UW. A little older than me, big, hearty, funny.






I learned recently he'd passed on.

We fished together several times on his boat, out in Puget Sound. Once he took me and a good friend of mine out, we drifted off Seattle jigging herring, and got two small kings, around 10 pounds. When we got back to his dock he offered to fillet the fish, remarking he was 'pretty good at this'. Indeed he was, cleanly doing each fish in a matter of seconds. My buddy remarked on the knife he was using, it was unusual: blue handle, long narrow untapered blade. He looked at it. "Oh, I stopped by the morgue this morning and picked it up, figured we'd get some fish."

A really nice guy, leveled me out a couple times when I was about to commit professional suicide by in-considered demands in board meetings.  

The world is poorer with him gone.


10 comments:

  1. Using a post-mortem knife to gut a fish...now that's not just fantastic, but has class of which few mere mortals can touch. That and your previous story you told about him gets me to wish I could've shook his hand.

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  2. He was a character, in the best sense of the word. He'd come into a board room meeting late, belly out, flushed from work and look around..."What are you bastards doing now?' he'd sigh.
    He once leaned over, sitting next to me when he sensed I was about to say something and whispered "sometimes the obvious is apparent enough."

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  3. A stabilizer. They're rare and precious, and in combination create a more just society.

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  4. We are all getting to that time in our lives that friends , colleagues, family are all slowly " moving on" ... Been there worn the t shirt

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    1. yeah, me too John, since I was 13 and my first friend died. It's just that he was so vibrant, he didn't 'light up" a room....he was the guy who everyone turned to when there was a issue needed resolving.

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  5. I'm thinking along John's line. Once a whole generation was available to us for advice; now we're the generation.

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    1. Comes at a price, if we're doing it right, and not just relying on our beliefs and those things that we know.

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  6. It's hard losing friends - even those we haven't seen for a while.

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    1. 'Tis, if you can't imagine them not being around.

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