Notes From Dr. Sam

Good Day,

I hope this note finds you well.

Annette and I are doing well; retirement seems to suit us nicely.

She is immersed in her work as a Master Gardener. In fact she just completed an eight-week master gardener class and is preparing to begin work on her forty hours of volunteer community gardening in the next year, at which time she will be a certified Master Gardener. She is making all description of new friends, from retired account executives to hippies who live off the land.

In the last few months she has tripled her gardening space on the hillside going down to the lake and is busy planning what greenery, flowers and vegetables will actually occupy these new spaces. As many of you know, she has a green thumb and make almost anything grow.

As I sit scribbling this little piece she is upstairs practicing her mountain dulcimer. She has had a beautiful instrument for several years and a few years ago became rather proficient. Life intervened and she put it up, but now with a little extra time she is strumming away at the strings. On our magical little cove the sound of the dulcimer rings true as a plaintive mountain voice that resonates with the wind in the pines and the water lapping against the shore.

As for me, this is the first time in forty-one years that I have not been involved in the flu season and I can tell you I don’t miss that one little bit. Three days a week I make it a point to come into town, have lunch with friends and make a turn by the office. In the last couple of weeks I have noticed that, as I expected, life has gone on without me and soon I will be a stranger in the halls that I helped create. I really don’t say that with regret because it seems natural, normal and expected. Just as they are going on so am I.

For years I have done practice writing on a daily basis and now each morning I get up, spend an hour or two writing and then make a couple of posts on Facebook. I have a large number of friends who seem to enjoy the same activity; it is rather like an old telephone party line from my youth. If you are so inclined please log on, request correspondence (I don’t say friendship because that sounds so needy) and see what fun we are having.

My most recent book, “The Public’s Health”, is going well and I end up putting four to five hours work on the promotion of the book and a couple of other projects I am working on.

Some of you may know that when we did the production of “Nobody’s Business” two years ago I became enamored by the guitar. Nic Townsend, Ben Bremmer, Jim Crippen and Allen Wright were so wonderful in their use of the instruments I decided I really wanted to learn to decipher the grid of the fret board and play the guitar. For the last eighteen months I have been taking lessons from my dear friend, Danny Fletcher, on South Street. My hope is that someday Annette and I will be playing together.

My hope for each of you is that as you make the transition that Annette and I are making you will enjoy it half as much as we do.

Have a good journey.

Sam