Thanks

I want to express my thanks to you.

Martha, my wife makes us all hold hands around the Thanksgiving table and say just what exactly we are thankful for. She warns us beforehand, so we think about it.

I’m going to ask the same of you right now. Stop reading this, look up at the ceiling and think about what exactly you should give thanks for. Then say it aloud. If there’s someone else in the room, please explain this exercise.

It’s easy these days to grouse. Some bemoan the planet warming while others are up in arms that transgender people might be considered as they wish.

Maybe you can’t get to the thankful part without the grousing. Then you need to take a deep breath and do better. You’re alive, aren’t you? That’s a start.

This season darkens in these northern latitudes. Some may be looking at the end of their life. I have attended many in such circumstances. Death comes to us all. I have learned, maybe you have to, most of us die just about the same way we have lived. Some are angry and bitter, some peaceful and thankful. I’m pressing you now to move toward the latter.

So, practice.

My thanks I offer is that you read this. I rarely hear from anybody about the words I write. I often use the phrase “We should talk.” But I’m in my shop and I don’t do Facebook or Reddit or X or Truth Social, so I don’t get the social media feedback. And I’m not asking that you send me a postcard. I’m just thanking you for your time to read and consider.

Thanks.

I hope you by now have thought about the things that you consider worthy of thanks.

Maybe it was a neighbor. Maybe they plowed your drive or waved “hi” to you as you sped off on an errand. Maybe they have just lived there for 20 years, providing stability to your neighborhood.

Maybe none of that you consider worthy of your thanks. Be careful. You may die like that someday.

If you want to get big picture, look out the window. That big spruce on the south side of your house that shades you all summer may deserve your thanks. Does it need a trim, some fertilizer? Or maybe it’s reached it’s time and it needs a chainsaw. How we give thanks can come in many forms.

Big picture thanks can often lead to the spiritual and with that comes the religious. Thanking God is almost a given at the Thanksgiving table. This wonderful mysterious world brings me awe and I give thanks.

You might have detected a bit of a moral quandary here. You might be thinking I am saying we should give thanks to ease our passage into the beyond.

Not so. There is no benefit expected from the honest thanks. It is just a gift, freely given.

So what lesson is there in this for an Idaho Democrat and all you other Republicans out there? A pretty big one really.

We are just small players in the big scheme. This state, this nation, this planet will survive us. We are just dust motes in the big picture.

But what we call each other, what we say about each other, how we envision each other just gets in the way of our being thankful for ourselves and each other and this big, beautiful world.

So, I will cook my turkey and I will prepare my spoken thanks as my wife, Martha, asks us to. I will express thanks that we can talk with each other about our fears, our needs. And thankfully, we can listen.

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Coroner Story: Dead Baby, Last

This doesn’t mean you won’t have to read about more, the ones in the middle…You should.

Sid wondered just why the prosecutor wanted him to come up to the courthouse. The message had come a couple days before, so he cleared out a couple of the early afternoon slots. Was he in trouble?

He parked the old ’54 Chevy in the lot. The Hilux had rusted away, but he still used it for dump runs. When he struggled with buying a new truck Martha had looked at him with wonder. “What have you always wanted?”

A new 4WD Toyota would be cool and practical. But he’d remembered the old 1953 Chevy his grandmother had. Four speed gearbox, steady engine. He’d told her he wanted it when he’d helped her move from the old place into town.

“But Jason said he wants it.” The truck was worn but in really good shape overall.

Jason was his cousin’s husband. “He’ll take good care of it. You should give it to him It’s a beauty. He’ll take good care.”

Then, on a later visit, he’d seen the truck gliding through the little Eastern Oregon hamlet. The side was caved in and the muffler blasting. It was beat to shit.

“Gramma, did you give that truck to Jason?”

“No, Honey. I sold it to a guy here in town. He was going to use it to get wood. I didn’t want there to be no bad blood between you two.”

A gem trashed to preserve nothing. Sid knew this sentiment, this insidious peacemaking.

But he’d found an old truck and fixed it up and now, in his later years of practice, he had some pride in it. It glowed in the lot.

He’d even taken it on coroner calls. Folks recognized him rolling up. Sometimes, at least. Once on the highway east of town, called to a motor vehicle death, he’d passed around the line of cars a deputy was holding. Sid could see the frown from a distance as he rolled up. “You’re supposed to stay in line.” The deputy had barked at him.

Sid smiled and looked down. “Sorry, but I’m the coroner.”

The deputy smiled back and said to come on.

As he strode up to the steps, he was again wondering just what mistake he had made.

The prosecutor met him in the hall. “Good, you’re here. We’re all here.” He said to a young woman who went into a room behind him.

“What’s this about?”

“I haven’t had time to brief you on this.” He held a folder. “We’re meeting with a family who had a child die a few years back. It seems the child’s death was declared a natural death by the coroner at the time, but they have found that such was not the case. I apologize I couldn’t get these documents to you earlier to review, but the medical records are all here.”

Sid looked at the manila folder. It was thin. That’s good. “What’s going on here?”

The prosecutor took a deep breath and launched in. “They have legitimate grievance. We are trying to assure them such an injustice would not happen again.”

“Injustice?”

The prosecutor handed Sid the folder. “Why don’t you look through this. When you’re done, come on in.” He went through the door and Sid opened the folder.

The top sheets were an autopsy report for a 9-month-old child from the big city in a neighboring state. They described the cause of death as injury to internal organs from blunt trauma. The manner of death was listed as homicide.

The next few pages described the hospital course for the infant before the autopsy was needed. Sid scanned them, knowing the pathways taken.

There were police reports after that, usual observations, nothing glaring.

The last page was the official death certificate. So familiar, he had done so many of these. But the coroner had put ‘pneumonia” as the cause of death, and “natural” as the manner of death. Sid couldn’t clearly read the coroner’s signature, but he knew of this guy.

This county had elected doctors to be coroners forever. That’s why he was currently serving. But doctors aren’t always honest, Sid knew. And Sid knew more.

This doctor had left town under a cloud. He had been a member of a prominent conservative church, but his sexual orientation was not accepted by their dogma. Sid just knew rumors of this history. But here’s his name, and here’s this death certificate.

Sid went into the room.

There was a big Formica table and about ten people seated around it. Sid only knew the prosecutor and two others. They were an older couple he had seen in the clinic with some of their many children. He knew them to be of the same faith as the former coroner, the fugitive doctor.

“And this is Doctor Hawthorne, our county coroner.” The prosecutor intoned.

Sid nodded to the couple. He knew them from clinic visits.

The prosecutor continued. “You have read the reports. This family is here today to get our assurances that such a miscarriage of justice will never happen again.”

Sid didn’t speak. They needed to.

The story came out. The day care providers were trusted church members. The coroner also was of their faith, though, they acknowledged, he had lapsed. They believed what they had been told. But then when autopsy results were revealed…. Tears flowed. They felt a deep wound.

And so did Sid.

But inside he felt some relief. It was not his fuck up. He slowly grasped just who was around this table. There was probably an agent from the county’s insurance company and at least a lawyer or two representing their interests. And since this had occurred in the city, Sid imagined some lawyers from them were here. He looked down at the folder. He looked across at the sad couple.

The baby was dead.

“I wish I could assure you.” He placed the folder on the Formica.

“I have done my best to insure good investigations of childhood deaths. I have instituted child death investigations in this county. Whenever a child dies, the death is reviewed by a panel. Our state is the only state in the union that does not have a statewide review, but we do this here in our county. I cannot assure you that such will be the case in the future. The county coroner is an elected position. The voters will make this call. I am so sorry for this. I wish it had been done differently.”

Sid left the basement room and got into the 54 Chevy pickup. He sat a bit before turning the key and stomping the starter button.

The next day he found the phone number of the former coroner.

It was a brief conversation.

That night he replaced the coil on the old pickup in his cold garage. He tried to keep things running. It brought him peace.

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Californication

You might be wondering how an Idaho Democrat is feeling right now. Or maybe not. If you are, good luck trying to find one to ask.

I can tell you how I’m feeling, since I am a registered Idaho Democrat, should you have an interest. But you probably don’t care.

A lack of interest in what I have to say can deter me. But I have striven to overcome such passive opposition. Remember, I served six years in the Idaho State Senate. It is rare for a State Senator to command attention from the body. It is much more common that emails are answered, and attention is elsewhere when a Senator rises to speak.

So, telling you how I am feeling is much like windward pissing. Let’s let it go. You don’t care how I feel. I can accept that. The wind is my problem, not yours.

You could hear a confession if you chose. Maybe you have moved on.

I moved to Idaho from California.

So, me, a registered Idaho Democrat might be the Californication you seem to want to repulse.

Sorry, I’m here for the long run.

I could give you all the back story. How my great grandfather settled in Pine Valley, just fifteen miles from Idaho in Eastern Oregon in 1880, just after Joseph and the non-treaty Nimipu made their valiant effort to evade the US military and declare their right to be on this ground. Pine Valley is just south of the Eagle Cap, south of the Wallowa Valley that Joseph and his people called home. It was included in the original treaty Joseph signed. But then, the US government demanded a change. And our military and us people got it. Including my great grandfather.

Otto Schmidt raised horses in Pine Valley and sold them to the US government. It was good land to raise horses. The Nimipu knew this. But we took it from them, so my forefather could profit. But times changed, and by the 1920’s, the US military’s need for horses saw a steep decline. My grandfather Henry was always blamed by Otto for this failure. Henry went to work as a cowboy for Albert Campbell of the Circle C ranch out of New Meadows. He pretty much abandoned his two kids to work cows. But you got to make a living, right?

Henry ended up buying up a bunch of abandoned hard scrabble benches along the Wildhorse River that empties from Idaho into the Snake River below Brownlee reservoir.

Henry’s son, my father left poverty in Pine Valley, fought the WWII, and built a business in Salem Oregon, then struck out to places south. We ended up in southern California when the business melted. It’s a long story.

So, I came to this state from Southern California.

It was a good choice.

I didn’t like SoCal freeways and subdivisions. I liked the place I had seen in my summers visiting. I admired Henry’s hard work and the opportunity. And I respected what he had accomplished.

So, if I’m the Californication Idaho must repulse, come talk to me about it. If I’m the guy you want to leave Idaho, let me know.

But there are a lot of ex-Californians here in Idaho right now.

I suspect the reason some ex-Californians are here is because they wanted to escape liberal, progressive, Democratic politics that pissed them off. And so, me, as an Idaho Democrat might not be exactly who they want to talk to.

But you should.

I have always wondered if Otto Schmidt, my great grandfather, just off the boat and the transcontinental train wondered whose land he was settling. I never met him. He was dead before I was born.

But I’m here. And so are Joseph’s ancestors and so are you.

Maybe we should talk.

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Dead Babies; Preface

Dead Babies

Preface

I’ve seen some.

I’ve even seen some I have delivered from out of their mothers’ wombs. Can you get more full circle?

Family doctor, coroner: birth and death.

Then we get around to the cause and manner of death, which shouldn’t, but brings in blame, doesn’t it?

These may not be pleasant stories. Coroner stories often aren’t. Consider this kind of like the NPR warning of hearing the sounds of gunfire. You may not like what follows.

And to make my life easier, and yours, and the lives in these stories, this is now fiction. Fiction does that. From now on, all these “Dead Baby” stories are made up, not real, a creation of the author. They do not depict what I have seen or been through. They do not depict the sorrow, the pain of any true families. This is just fiction.

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Coroner Story: Dead Baby; First

The First

Sid had become comfortable with the maelstrom. Toddlers screaming, tearing about as the mom held the newborn, the focus of his interest.

“How’s he doing?”

She held the babe to her breast and smiled at Sid. “Good appetite.”

She was here for the ten-day check. She knew the routine.

He remembered standing between her spread legs. There was sweat on her cheeks, but her gaze met his. This was coming fast. “Push this next time and it will be over.” And she did. And it was.

He caught the slippery form and held it to his chest as the fluids and the cord draped down to the basin. Suction, cut the cord, then hand it off. He attended the mother, the nurse attended the babe, since all looked okay at this point. The mom was the greatest risk right now, so she got his attention.

Sid heard the baby cry from the warmer, so he felt his assessment good. Deliver the placenta, watch for bleeding, look for cuts to sew, check for bleeding. Then turn to the babe.

He did that, and her bleeding was okay. Then he went to the warmer.

Sally, the nurse this day said, “Pretty bruised.” The wrinkled newborn face was darker than expected.

Sid did his exam. Healthy baby wrapped up and taken over to mom. “He’s bruised a bit from coming down that fast. It’s a tough journey. But he’ll be okay. We’ll need to watch for jaundice. The nurses will tell you about that. I gotta go back to clinic.”

And so, he did. And then she was here.

“Did you see any jaundice; did he get yellow?”

 “Not much Doc. I watched for it, but he nursed real good from the beginning.”

They both heard the knock on the door. Cindy didn’t enter, just cracked it a bit and said softly, “City Police Department on line two.” Sid’s nurse tolerated his coroner role. But she hated when it interrupted patient care. Sid did too. So, he finished with the babe and left the maelstrom and the Madonna.

Sid stifled his irritation and picked up line two. “Doctor Hawthorne here.”

“Yeah, doc they want you to respond to a scene.”

“Can I go at lunch time? I’m seeing patients.”

“Uh, no they need you there now. It’s a dead baby.”

Sid got the location. Just a few blocks west. Still, he’d have to cancel a couple appointments.

It was late summer, and the University had just started. The town absorbed and welcomed the influx of retail.

Sid had lived in and observed many Idaho towns and decided he didn’t want to live in a mill town. Mills shut down, not because the guys working there are lazy or are doing bad work. But maybe the market has taken a downturn, and the global supply is tweaking prices. So, the guys go to half shifts or are laid off. Sid came to believe that this boom and bust for no fault of their own created an abusive environment.

So, he chose a town with a university. Maybe that would be healthier.

But he came to learn Paradise was a mill town too. The mill didn’t ship out plywood or two by lumber, but the degrees were a product.

And that was where Sid was going. The scene was behind a tall dormitory just blocks from the clinic.

It was a beautiful morning. He parked the Hilux behind a patrol car. There were two or three and yellow tape around a dumpster. Cam came up quickly.

“Hey doc.” He didn’t smile.

“So, what’s going on?”

He stood up tall, six inches over the short family doctor and coroner. Cam and Sid’s daughters both swam on the local swim team. It’s a small town, except for all these students coming and going.

Cam took a deep breath and exhaled. He looked at Sid, then down to the asphalt. “A cleaning woman found a dead baby in the dumpster here.”

He took another breath. “There were bloody sheets with the body. We have determined the sheets came from a room up there on the sixth floor. We have a young woman in custody. I don’t know her story, they are questioning her downtown. But we need you to authorize an autopsy on the baby.”

Sid looked off to the north hills. He could almost see his house from here. Kids in school, wife doing her thing. Dead baby, Sid’s first.

“Okay, Cam, I’ll get it done. Anything else?”

He smiled. Like he appreciated Sid was learning his job. “No Doc, we got the team doing the scene investigation, checking with witnesses.”

Before turning to go Sid stopped. “Cam, where is the body?”

He frowned a bit. “We took it downtown as evidence.”

“Is it in a cooler?”

“I don’t know.”

“Make sure it’s in a cooler, like a refrigerator, not a freezer. Then I’ll let you know where to take it for an autopsy.”

He nodded.

Sid got Morgan, the local pathologist to agree to do the autopsy. He was very skilled, but often refused to do cases that might lead to prosecution. But he would save the taxpayers a thousand bucks compared to shipping the little bundle off.

Sid read about the story of the young lady in the next day’s morning paper. She was a freshman student from California in a dormitory. Her roommate didn’t know she was pregnant. The cleaning crew had responded to the blood and the missing sheets and followed the trail to the dumpster. He could imagine.

Morgan called him the next day in the middle of morning clinic. “Well, there’s no clear cause of death. But the sclera definitely has petechial hemorrhages, so I’m going to call this a death by asphyxia. I believe she choked this baby after it was born.”

Sid exhaled. Petechial hemorrhages are classic for whenever there is an external obstruction to the internal blood pressure.

“Morgan, have you ever delivered a baby?”

Sid heard the chuckle. “We all have to do OB in our Med School rotations Sid. Yes, I’ve delivered babies.”

Sid knew, his colleagues did not like their conclusions questioned. But he thought of the babies with their cords around their necks, the babies that had come fast and were bruised, the shoulder dystocia, stuck there and choking. Sid doubted his pathologist friend had gone through these uncommon traumatic birth episodes.

“Okay. Send me your report.”

Back to the grind.

It was all in the local news. Dead baby, dumpster, University offering support. But elk season was close.

Cousin Charley had decided on Partridge Creek. He’d bring his two worthless pack animals and they’d just have to hike in the five miles, climbing 6000 feet elevation. Sid took ten days off.

And he went.

The vision of a spooked elk herd running down the avalanche chute after they had winded either him or Charley did not stay with him. But another vision did.

As he tried to get a view of the thundering herd, an elk calf came through the brush, the hoof beats behind, and sniffed, intently toward him. Sid could see the outline through the branches. The big nostrils, the moist quivering nose, the little frame, the dark eyes all directed toward him. He could hear the forceful nose pointed sniffs. The calf was discerning danger, or safety. Then there was a bleat behind, and it was gone with the others, down to the timber below. Its mother told it what to do, or else some other responsible mature cow in the herd was looking out for a young, inquisitive calf. Someday it may be a big bull, or an old cow. Sid’s memory was of the sniffing, the questioning.

There were lots of messages for him when he got back. He told the Prosecutors office he could come up that day after he’d finished with his patients, he hoped before 6PM.

The secretary took him to the office of the new Deputy Prosecutor. She’d been assigned the young woman’s case. Sid shook her hand, never having met her before.

“We had a preliminary hearing last week where you were scheduled to testify. The judge kindly postponed it due to your unavailability.” The tall woman with auburn dyed hair was staring at Sid like a disappointed schoolteacher would a truant.

“Sorry, this is the first I heard about it. I was out elk hunting.” Sid figured that was the best excuse there was for missing a court date. “If you need me to do something, you gotta let me know.” To himself he admitted he probably wouldn’t have skipped the hunt for some court testimony, even if he would have known.

“We left the message with your office. It’s not our fault.” Now she was getting riled. She got up briskly from her chair and strode to the door, a tall woman in high heels. Sid was slouching, now really feeling a truant. She closed the door and strode back, sat down, and took her glasses off. It didn’t make her stare any harsher. Sid wondered if she was trying to be meaner, or nicer with that. “Look, Doctor Hawthorne. You are the county coroner, and I am the deputy county prosecutor. We are on the same side. We both want justice for that poor dead child.”

Sid nodded silently.

“So, can I expect your cooperation in this case?”

Sid nodded again.

“Have you read the pathologists report?”

Sid nodded again. “Just this morning.”

“So, we have a homicide here, and that requires justice.” She stood to her full height and stuck out her hand. “I hope we haven’t gotten off on the wrong foot here. The judge has rescheduled the hearing for three weeks from now, the first week of December. Please be available.” She smiled and Sid shook her hand.

As he left the office in the courthouse basement, he was considering that thing about sides and justice she had thrown out with such confidence.

Later, after hospital rounds and dinner with the family he went out to his messy garage. The kids were in bed and the dishwasher droning in the kitchen. Sid needed some space. The cluttered workbench with dark windows above was quiet. But he didn’t putter. He would usually pick up a broken thing and try to fix it, but tonight he just stared out the darkened windows.

Such peace was rare for him.

It was Friday and he would be on call this coming weekend. That’s what you get when you take 10 days off to hunt. The sides and justice thing had turned itself over in his mind enough, so he made a call. Literally.

The public defender had agreed to meet him on Sunday. Sid had picked a time after hospital rounds but before noon clinic. The office was a small old house below the courthouse.

There were two of them, lawyers in this small town that had a law school and more lawyers than doctors. Sid didn’t feel outnumbered, just wanting to get this done.

The older guy with lots of ear hair smiled and in his gravely smoker’s voice asked with a grin, “How was hunting?”

“Just fine.”

“Look Doctor we really appreciate your meeting with us. This poor girl…”

“You both need to know I’m not on your side.” Sid cut him off. “I don’t know your client, never met her, don’t have any judgement about what happened.”

They both sat looking at him.

“Have you read the autopsy report?”

They both nodded.

“Have you read my Death Certificate?”

They shook their heads.

“You might want to. I certified the cause of death as asphyxia since that’s what the pathologist found. But I certified the manner of death as “Could not be Determined.”

They both looked a bit blank.

Sid did a short lesson on cause and manner of death.

“You see, babies can be asphyxiated just in the process of birth. Some come out and don’t breathe, or their breathing is so poor they can’t keep it up without help. I did not agree with the pathologist’s interpretation that this was a homicide.”

The gravely voice asked, “Would you testify to that?”

Sid shifted. “I would prefer not to. You ought to look around for some experts other than me. I’m just a family doc in a small town.”

The younger lawyer asked about the petechia, asking Sid to explain.

“It’s pronounced ‘Pe-teek-ia’. It’s when small blood vessels burst from internal blood pressure usually caused by external pressure or trauma. But that’s exactly what a vaginal birth is, trauma. The baby’s head is under great pressure, especially in a first-time mom. I would bet this would be a common finding in most newborns. Ask somebody else. Don’t go on my word. But I think there’s a lot of ambiguity in this situation.”

Sid stood up. “Look, I’ve got to get to clinic. You guys have work to do too. Don’t consider me your expert. And remember, I’m not on your side.”

They stood up as he left.

Clinic was busy.

Two weeks later the paper announced the trial was cancelled and a plea agreement had been reached. Sid got no message from the prosecutor’s office. He just read the paper and decided he would not need to cancel appointments.

The young woman Sid never met got some counselling, and probation, plead guilty to not reporting a death Sid learned from local news. He never heard from the high heels or the ear hair guy. But he imagined, like the darkness out his workshop windows, or the quivering wet nose of an elk calf, maybe this was how it would be. He thought of the young woman, and justice. She probably suffered the rest of her life. Maybe he would too.

Cause of Death: Asphyxia

Manner of Death: Could not be Determined.

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Break

Some of you might have been wondering where I’ve been. That’s a common question posed about us Idaho Democrats.

Well, I’ve been up on ladders and planks and some real rickety scaffold, painting the second story window trim in a long hot summer. There was the bathroom remodel, refinishing the cabinets and fixing the exhaust on the Adventurewagen. I’ve been busy. I really doubt I have been missed.

Despite what the Republicans might claim, I have not attended any Communist Party conventions, nor gone to any Antifa weapons training weekends. I’m an Idaho Democrat and don’t have time for such folly. I’m just painting old, cracked boards that will peel again this winter, despite my efforts. I have my own folly. It involves maintaining old houses, old cars, my old body, and mind. So, I take a break now and then.

And as an Idaho Democrat, I know fallacy. Peeling paint and super minority status are about equal in my book. So, I scrape and paint.

I did attend a fundraising effort by the local Idaho Democratic Party. It was actually well attended. The food was good, and the drinks were paid for, and the band played. I had two beers. The local candidates gave their pitches. I remember those days.

Most were pretty good, though for some the applause was obligatory.

I mingled.

I started asking how many of these folks at this event were registered as Idaho Democrats. I knew most of them by name.

I found that at least a quarter of the folks at this Idaho Democratic fundraiser admitted to being registered as an Idaho Republican. About a tenth said they were unaffiliated.

No wonder some Idaho Republicans have tried their best to purify their taxpayer-funded primary election. Some of these rascally Idaho Democrats are wearing sheep’s clothing.

I just see it as a testament to how avidly people want to participate in the electoral process. Let’s be honest. A couple thousand voters choose the candidate in the May Republican primary election. The muttering crowd endorses the nominee in November.

It makes sense that the Idaho Republican party wants to purge us voters from their rolls. Those Idaho Democratic supporters who probably gave money to Idaho Democratic candidates don’t really support Idaho Republican values.

But the current system is rigged.

Some Republican wacko candidate wins their primary with maybe 2000 votes. They for sure will go on to win the general election. Because Idaho voters vote Republican, no matter.

The Republican wacko or moderate primary winner now goes on to represent the 45,000 people in their legislative district.

Does this current system in Idaho represent the values of our representative democracy?

Maybe.

Back when our founders scribbled this up on parchment, women couldn’t vote. Slaves couldn’t vote. Indeed, the landed, rich mostly slave-holding patrons ruled. Don’t miss the good old days. We have them here in Idaho.

So, Idaho Democrats are in a quandary. The Initiative, Prop 1, for open primaries and rank choice general elections will undoubtedly help more moderate republicans get elected. But it won’t help Idaho Democrats gain any legislative seats.

Besides scraping, painting, and climbing ladders, I have knocked on a few doors for my local party. I now hold the lowest elected position, precinct committeeman in the Latah County Democratic Party. We should get out and know the people in our precinct.

Some of the people in my precinct weren’t registered to vote. I helped with that. I talked to them about local candidates. But I also talked to them about Prop 1. Almost everybody I spoke with thought it made good sense.

I endorse Prop 1, knowing it will not elect more Idaho Democrats. It’s just the right thing to do for our state.

It’s good to take a break.

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Coverage

I know many conservatives don’t want to consider that the government we endow with our, the people’s power, have any obligation to those who give this power. We’re talking entitlements here.

I don’t like thinking anybody is entitled to anything. I grew up poor. But I find myself now among the entitled. So, forgive me this rant.

When children are taken from their parents by the state, we owe these children something.

I wish their parents had provided for them. But they didn’t. Believe me, the bar in Idaho is pretty high for a court to remand custody to the state.

In a recent Board of Health and Welfare meeting we heard some of the new Director’s solutions to our problem. He proposed rules to get more foster parents eligible to take in foster children. I fully support this step. He may see the problem as budget balance, but I see it bigger.

I hope you can too.

When a child is enrolled in foster care, they become eligible for Medicaid health insurance. The DHW does its best to get them enrolled and the benefits available.

Before we go on, ask yourself if you think a taxpayer benefit of health insurance to a child ward of the state is proper. Some may not.

Currently, in Idaho that eligibility for health insurance lapses when the foster child reaches the age of 26. Why?

The age of 26 limit was a decision by our federal government. It was a part of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare. Just as the option to continue your own kids off in college on the family plan up to age 26, the foster kids got rolled into that negotiated limit. Remember, Obamacare was negotiated not with Republicans, but with the health insurance industry. I guess somebody thinks these wards should be out paying premiums by the age of 26. Maybe you do too.

Some states accept other states foster children into their Medicaid benefits, should they move here. Say the foster child leaves their Utah foster home at the age of 18 and moves to Idaho. They will not be eligible for benefits in Idaho. That is a choice our state has made.

I here propose that any child who has been awarded to state custody should have health insurance supported by the state for the rest of their lives.

The Idaho legislature has acknowledged there are significant Adverse Childhood Events, ACES. The impact of these events is lifelong. Children who experience childhood trauma carry this with them onward.

We, the people who have given the state the authority to retain custody when a parent cannot provide for their child, should see to the fostering of that child to the best of our ability.

Maybe you don’t think the state should intervene into this. I would welcome your thoughts. I could tell you some stories.

Indeed, at our IDHW Board meeting we heard some stories. Two people told how they had taken children into their families outside of the foster system. I suspect many Idaho families step up like this. Indeed, our family has.

So, I believe the kids that become “wards of the state” have very little resources. Shouldn’t we support them?

My proposal that Medicaid eligibility for foster children be lifelong is not without precedent.

When kidney failure could be treated with dialysis, Congress decided the diagnosis of “End Stage Renal Disease” would make the person eligible for Disability and Medicare health insurance.

Congress should roll up the age of Medicaid eligibility for foster children to the end of their life.

All people should have access to health care. But the children awarded to state custody deserve this, even if we can’t decide we all do.

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Footnote

I got these publications as a State Senator and read them avidly. “Facts, Figures and Trends” published by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Now, on the Board of Health and Welfare, I get them again. You could read them online. I get great joy from turning the pages and folding over a corner. But they are printed at your, the taxpayers’ expense.

The trends, the facts are thrilling.

That’s a joke.

But if you are in charge of spending the public’s money, I believe you should pay attention to how it is spent. I watch our current batch of Idaho legislators and I don’t think they are paying much attention. You should be.

Let me draw your attention to the plot twist on page 57. This pertains to the Division of Family and Community Services, specifically Foster Care. The graphs clearly show that the number of children placed in foster care has gone down over the past four years. Yeah, the crowd roars, less children needing state intervention. But then it shows the cost of this to the taxpayers has tripled. If I was still on the Budget committee, I’d be looking at that pretty closely.

To be honest, you should know the IDHW, and the oversight committee has their eyes on this. But you, the voter, the taxpayer should too. Ask your legislator at the next town hall when he asks for your vote. I’ll bet you get a blank look.

We shouldn’t overlook the foreshadowing on page 31. This is a different chapter concerning the Division of Behavioral Health. The data here is deep, but on the forementioned page numbers struck me. Facts, don’t you love them?

The table shows the number of children served by this division over the last four years. In 2020 3,300. In 2023, 1715.

What? Are there suddenly half as many children needing mental services? Indeed, the number of court-ordered services dropped by 25% too. Are our youth suddenly more resilient? Are we doing something great that we should all know about?

Then I turn to page 35. The plot deepens.

Adults have also seen a decline in services. Over the four-year trend, 2000 less adults needed behavioral health services between 2020 and 2023. Only a quarter needed other services, housing, meds, employment.

Don’t skip over the footnotes.

Should footnotes be at the bottom of the page or in the back? Same type, or smaller? This one was on the same page, but small enough print I needed to squint.

Medicaid expansion happened in January 2020. Many adults needing behavioral health services became eligible for this health insurance and then moved to that care.

Do your legislators know such care is paid for with 75% federal dollars? Taxes pay for all of this. How do you want to pay?

Of course, maybe you just don’t think folks need this care. These are important questions. You might want to ask your representative.

I’ll skip over the bouncing numbers of communicable diseases on page 132.

At community town halls I have heard my representative say about Medicaid: “We can’t just keep paying for this, we have to get a handle on these expenses.”

I would encourage our representatives to get a handle on the expense by embracing the numbers. Only by paying attention to details can we manage a budget.

But then the question comes, should we embrace our fellow citizens with the comfort of health insurance?

Do you even understand where Medicaid money is spent?

You legislators are still whining about Medicaid Expansion. But the annual taxpayers’ cost for those coved by this health insurance is about $7500. While we taxpayers pay over $20,000 a year for the health insurance for our legislators.

Maybe you just think you deserve it, and others don’t.

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Coroner Story: Lessons

I don’t learn well about myself.  Do you?

Memorization.  Lists of things, formulas, I find I can commit lots of these things to memory if I can give them some meaning, some relationship to my life.  But my own mistakes and shortcomings, maybe they are forever hidden.  They just keep reemerging into my flawed consciousness like a hammer blow to a thumb.

 For instance, I write this story in the City Library at San Luis Obispo in California, far from my Idaho home and duties.  My daughter is in a soccer camp for four days.  I drove her down here the 1500 miles and now have these 4 days to kill while she sharpens her football skills. 

What to do?  No friends to stay with.  Do I rent a hotel room?  It’s expensive.  I have a sleeping bag…  Why not just sleep out on the ground tonight?  Save some money.  Besides it will be fun… 

Yeah.  Dirt, stiff joints…  Fun.  But I am by nature and by many years of upbringing a cheapskate. I don’t know if that will ever change.

We have our natures, our personal shortcomings. These shouldn’t afflict us in public service. But they can.

But this story should not be about me. 

It’s about a dead old man in his basement.  It was one of the early years I had doing this coroner job.  It was still very perplexing, and I felt very alone.  No one to call for advice.  Further, I was working with a sheriff that hated me and wanted me to look bad so he could get his friend elected coroner. This may all sound like excuses to you, but it helps me to make sense of my thinking at the time, since, looking back now, the decisions seem so wrong. And then, there was the dead guy.

The call came on a late fall evening at a reasonable hour, maybe seven o’clock.  The dispatcher told me of a dead body found in a home in Potlatch. The deputy was requesting me to come to the scene.  I called the deputy at the deceased’s home phone.  It’s always interesting how they will answer.  “Mr. so-and-so’s residence,” is often it since they don’t want to give away his death to a casual or mistaken caller.  They are standing there with a dead body in a delicate situation, etiquette– wise.  If they pick up a ringing phone and answer with their own name or rank, “Deputy Jack M. Hoff” the caller may wonder what the sheriff’s deputy is doing there.  No, they will wonder. They may just be polite enough not to ask. 

The deputy doesn’t want to go telling who ever might happen to call about the death, you know, all those messy questions.  Best to let that come out in an official manner. 

But they want me to call them at the residence over a land- line since the sheriff radios get picked up on scanners and they know people are listening in. The nice dispatch lady gave me the home landline number.

The deputy I’m calling answered this time, “Uh, hello” after the fourth ring.  He sounded a bit nervous.  I asked if this is the residence of Mr. Thompson.  I’m letting him know he could’ve answered the phone this way. But this question seems to puzzle him a bit, no answer right away. I figure he’s confused about the tense.  Is versus was.  I can hear his confusion. Kind of a stammer-pause, awkward sort of thing, like you hear in class when the kid doesn’t know how to get past the teacher.  So, I interrupt,” Is this deputy Smith?  This is the coroner.”

“Oh, Hi,” he says.  So, I’m getting the picture of a low-watt appliance here.  I ask the setting, where the body is, any sign of a struggle.  Can’t we just call it natural and save me the drive to the small town?  But he says, “Doc, I think you better come out here.”

“So, you think there might have been a crime?”

“Well, I don’t think so,” he offers.

I still don’t want to make the drive.  “So why don’t we say he died of a heart attack and have the funeral home pick him up?”

“I really think you ought to come out here.”

“Has the Sheriff assigned any detectives?”

“No.”

I give him a big sigh, “Oh, all right.  I’ll be 30 minutes or so to get there.  Give me the directions…”

No traffic, no snow, but I still drive by it two times before I find the house.  No real house

numbers or mailboxes in his little old mill town. 

The sheriff’s deputy car is down in the lower part of the driveway, and this is my clue on

the second pass. It wasn’t easy to see from the road and I missed it the first time around. 

I knock on the front door and a younger man opens it.  The deputy is standing in the living

room behind him. 

They want me to go right down to the basement and look at the body. 

I get them to slow down a bit and set the scene for me. 

The young man is the neighbor.  He checks on the elderly Mr. Thompson every day or so. 

The neighbor saw him Saturday but didn’t check on him Sunday.  Weekend and all and he

took his kids hunting, a family activity in this part of the state.

After work tonight he came over to check on him. Today’s paper was still on the front

porch from this morning but not the Sunday one.  The door was locked like usual, but he

had a key and let himself in as usual. 

It was common for the front door to be locked. 

The neighbor also picked up the mail and the paper and brought them in dropping them all

in an easy chair in the living room on the way into the kitchen. 

As he tells this he’s a little agitated and wants me to go look at the body right away.  I need

to get him to concentrate so he tells me all the details in order, carefully. 

I ask about the old man’s habits. 

The neighbor, a short, lumberjack- dressed guy in a clean flannel shirt and clean work

pants and Romeo slippers obviously showered after work before coming over. He seems

bright and observant but sort of pressured. He obviously thinks the answer is in the

basement, what’s with all these questions?

However, he answers the best he could.

 “Oh, he was real regular, nothing special.”  It sounds like there’s no family nearby, he had a wife, but she died quite a while ago. 

Had he seemed despondent, sad?  Was he in poor health?  Any changes in his usual ways? 

Did he drink?

 The neighbor, frowning, shakes his head.  He’s paying good attention.  But he has no clues

for me.  And I can tell he’s feeling bad about not being able to help me.

So, I look at the little table in the kitchen.  The whole kitchen is just neat as a pin.  Coffee cup rinsed and tipped up in the strainer.  Oatmeal bowl rinsed and tipped next to cup and saucer.  Spoon standing up.  At his place was a lined stationery pad with four lines of pencil verse, oddly sad with the general melancholy of the Scots.

            A time to remember is now past

            my heart once younger now breaks

            the love of mine heart did not last

            my soul wanders wherever the Lord takes.

I offer a wry smile.  “Look at this”, I note to the neighbor.  “It looks almost like a suicide note.”  The neighbor stands over it.   He’s frowning at the verse.  I figure he finds it too dense, but he says, “Nah Doc, he was always writing stuff like that.  Look.” 

And he points to the wall above the little table. Sure enough, similar four-, six- or eight-line verses are torn from the same lined pad and scotch taped to the wall.  They all seem as melancholy and vague.  And the yellow of the tape lets you know some of them are not recent.  Some more are on the kitchen cabinets. Regular Robbie Burns fan, I guess.

Dead end, so to speak, the suicide note idea.

They want to rush me down the stairs, but I go to the old man’s bathroom first.  Regular stuff, some high blood pressure medications, no antidepressants. No pain medications.  Nothing exciting.  I did get the name of his doctor. I’ll give him a call in the morning and review the medical record.

Now it’s time to go down the stairs.

The basement is well lit and neat like the rest of the house.  Laundry in one section with a washer and dryer.  There was a load in the washer, clean but wet.  Nothing in the dryer.  There was a plastic clothes basket overturned at the bottom of the stairs and there were dry, clean clothes, some folded, strewn down the steps and onto the cement floor.  The deceased was lying on his side near the center of the room.  In the center of the basement was a small wood stove backed to a brick flue. It was cool.

The dead man was cool and stiff, probably dead now at least a day, maybe a day and a half.  The cement floor was cool.  He had fixed, full body rigor, but the fingers were loosening.  The lividity was fixed.  It showed no movement of the body since death. This put his death about Sunday morning, after breakfast but before afternoon. 

The clean, worn Levi’s he wore were unbuckled and unzipped and pulled down to mid-thigh.  He was lying on his left side with his left arm underneath him.  The right arm was out, extended.  His underwear were still up and urine-soaked.  But his forehead was injured.  There was a significant pre-morbid contusion, laceration with dried blood going down the nose and dried blood on the forehead.  Some was on his lips and on the teeth.  There were no injuries to his mouth.

Geez

I looked up at the neighbor.  He was pretty nervous.  “You got anything further here?”  I asked him.  He shakes his head and I look at the deputy.  I ask him if he needs anything from him.  Then I send him off home.  I turned to the deputy. 

“Has a detective been called?”

“Um, no sir.”

“Can you call one?”

He shook his head. “I suggested that earlier to dispatch and the sheriff said to call you.”

I looked down at the cement floor next to the dead body and shook my head. So, this is how it is going to play, no cooperation.

I try to work with what I’ve got. “What do you think happened?” I ask the deputy. I do this, trying to get folks to rise to the situation.

“I’m not sure.”

So, I go on. “If you look at these clothes all over the floor here it looks like he dragged himself around some.  These clothes kinda hooked on him and got pulled this direction.  You take any pictures of this?”  The deputy shakes his head.  “Nope Doc.  I’m no detective.”

Usually, the sheriff’s office does these investigations since their budget is a thousand times mine. Plus, they have all the camera equipment and record keeping.

But this guy and me aren’t getting along. I’m pondering what to do as I’m looking down at the smooth cement floor and I notice a blood spatter. 

There are regular spatters, about 3 inches in diameter in the line I think he drug himself around.  The blood marks are like he’s hitting his forehead against the floor as he tries to drag himself forward.  There are splatters outward from the circular smear, like he hit his head downward with pretty good force.  Hard enough to split the skin and splatter droplets of blood a foot or two outwards. 

He’s kinda made a circle in the floor starting near the base of the stairs and coming clockwise around the central wood stove.  He’s now lying facing the washer and dryer across from the foot of the steps.  He’s perpendicular to the steps, a bit to the right of them and a little behind where they came into the room. 

At the landing on the stairs a 2×4 railing had pulled loose. We’d missed this on the first trip down the stairs.  Then the clothes are scattered down the steps from the landing to the floor.  There is no blood at the bottom of the stairs. It’s just in the last three to 4 ft. of what I presume was his path dragging himself across the floor.

Foul play?  Did somebody shove him down the stairs in a struggle, then pound his head on the floor?  Why the pants down?  No evidence of sexual assault.

I stood looking at this for a long time with the deputy watching me.  I wasn’t sure whether to ask him for help or tell him to go away.  Finally, the way I put it together was that the old man had a stroke, or broken hip, or some sudden injury on the landing.  He’d stumbled and fell to the basement floor, letting the clean folded clothes in the basket go flying.  As he falls to the basement floor, he can’t get himself up.  He can’t arise because of either the hip fracture or paralyzing stroke, which I am favoring because of the difficulty pulling down the pants.  As the bleeding in his brain worsens and he realizes he will not be getting up the stairs to call for help he tries to end himself, do himself in with the only tool at hand, a hard concrete floor.  He also realizes he needs to urinate but cannot do this with one hand.  He cannot fully get his pants down.  Imagine the shame and indignity for this neat, tidy, poetic man.

 Or at least so I put it together.  I ran the scenario by the deputy.  He nodded about wasn’t enthusiastic.

“You going to get an autopsy?”  He asks.  They always want an autopsy.

“I’ll tell you what….”  I’m now arguing with my cheapskate self and the Sheriff who is not in the room. 

The deputy just wants an answer to a very interesting question.  Kind of like the folks who say, “What does this pain in my stomach mean, Doc?”  A pain they know well but haven’t the context in which to place it. No meaning to a memorized fact. I struggle with the range of diagnostic tests available.  The tests have a quite fallible ability to answer the question of the pain. Expensive, uncomfortable, imperfect tests.  And I also ponder the likelihood of this pain making any difference in the long run to this poor suffering student’s mortality or morbidity.  In other words, I think of it in terms of how to best spend their resources to answer this question.  I usually frame my answer in these cases based on my impression of whether this pain is minor, self-limiting, like most pains we suffer are, or if it is related to a bigger more problematic situation needing intervention.  This is also how I am thinking about the expensive autopsy test we are considering, me and Mr. Deputy on the cement floor next to Mr. Thompson now a day and a half dead.

Plus, I consider I am over budget for autopsies this year.

I decide I would try to take a shortcut and do an x-ray of the hip in the morning. Maybe I could save the taxpayers a couple thousand dollars.  If the x-ray is positive, then a broken hip led to his death.  I’m trying to pinch the taxpayers’ pennies.  Nothing is missing from the house, no money, no goods, and there was no forced entry.  It does not look like there was a struggle, at least I don’t think so.  So, the manner of death is most likely “natural” or at the worst accidental.  Why all the expense?

But the x-ray was negative: no broken hip.

His doc had nothing to help me. Just a little high blood pressure in a guy in his late seventies who hated doctors. My kind of patient.

By morning, even with the negative x-ray I managed to convince myself I could call it a stroke. I signed off the manner of death as natural, cause of death stroke.

Then, a year later, in the same little community, an elderly woman disappears.  There is a new sheriff now.  The careful detective’s investigation finds blood on the walls of her bedroom (only traces) and her skull is found two years later.  Her cause of death was a homicide. No forced entry. Nothing missing from her home except her body. And this has not been solved to this day. So now, at this advanced stage of my career, after years of pondering and reflection, I order more autopsies. I have learned a little bit about my skin flint self, and I have made some adjustments.

But writing this story has taken a long time, and I need to get going.  I’ve decided to get a campground spot.  I’ll sleep in the chill and the fog on the hard ground in my inadequate sleeping bag.  Stiff bones in the morning.

Cause of death: Stroke

Manner of death: Natural

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Coroner Story: July 4th

For some reason I passed up the family invitation to the fireworks.  I usually love fireworks, but my hip was real sore, and I didn’t want the pain of sitting on a grassy hill despite the pleasure of explosions and showers of color.  So, I stayed home, and they were all gone.  The house was empty except for me and computer solitaire when this coroner call came.  Dispatch gave me the address and name and requested me to come to the scene.  The dispatcher wouldn’t elaborate but it sounded like there may be some question about the manner of death.

I recognized the guy’s name and checked the medical record.  I had admitted him to the hospital just a month earlier for a partner of mine. He had painless jaundice and unexplained weight loss.  Both my partner and I, when discussing it were sure he had pancreatic cancer. These are the hallmark symptoms taught in medical school. The abdominal CT had supported this with their usual vague description of a mass in the head of the pancreas. It looked like they had tried to obtain a biopsy, tissue diagnosis.  You cannot treat without a tissue diagnosis. 

This is one of the basic rules of medicine.  We cannot treat until we know exactly what we are treating. 

I recall an incident when that was almost accidental, but quite fortuitous.  I’m now wandering off the coroner work into the doctor work. But you should have figured out by now, that’s just how it was.

One pre-Christmas December I was called to see a man who came to the emergency room with a first-time seizure.  His CT scan was up on the reading room boxes in the radiology department when I got to the hospital. The radiologist in his darkened room gloomily pointed to the mass in the brain and said, “Most likely glioblastoma, could be an astrocytoma,” both brain cancers.  Then he looked at me and said, “Looks like a young man.  Not good news you’ll be giving him this Christmas.”  As he was packing up the films in their large manila envelope he added as an aside “It could be an abscess I suppose but I doubt it.”  Then he headed out to his $45,000 car.  He had just earned more in 10 minutes of reading that film than I would in the next two hours with this family. 

I’ve never given this news to a man of his age.  I didn’t know him. I’d met his wife and young children in the office for sports physicals or their colds and sprains.  They were a friendly and loving family, not unlike my own.  As I climbed the stairs to the third floor of our small hospital I practiced the words, the speech that I would need to give. 

But you really can’t practice. You just still your heart and empty your mind.  You try for stillness and calm in the face of the unknown.  The immense and deep unknown of death we all will face if we only pause to realize.

I entered the room where the wife sat quietly in a chair next to his bed.  He was groggy from the seizure medication he’d been given in the ER.  He looked not much older than me.  I introduced myself and then asked them to tell the story of the seizure.  The family was getting ready to go to a Christmas party when he felt the seizure start.  His right arm jerked and stiffened uncontrollably then it marched to his leg and then generalized to his whole body.  He remembered only a little of this, so his wife told most of the story softly and calmly. 

It was a classic description of what I had learned in medical school as a Jacksonian seizure.  This is usually indicative of a brain lesion, something that didn’t belong, a brain lesion like we had seen on his CT scan, the horrible growth that had been glowing in the radiologist’s darkened room.  I did a cursory physical examination and then softly closed the door to the hall.

“I’ve spoken with the radiologist about your CT scan.”  I remembered looking at his face.  He was calm, open and waiting, listening.  I also looked at his wife’s darkened face in the corner.  “There is a mass in your brain.  This is what has caused her seizure.  The radiologist feels it is most likely a brain tumor.”

At this point I paused.  He was looking at me with his head on the pillow.  “Well, I guess that’s it then, isn’t it?”  He said.  I looked to his wife.  I don’t know what my face said, but hers was melting into shock, grief, despair, anguish.  Tears rolled.  Sobs shook.  His face was stolid and still.  She got up and walked over to him to hold his head. She buried her tears in his shoulder and sobbed.  He looked up at me.  “I guess that’s it, huh?”  He repeated.

I spoke to him of a tissue diagnosis.  One always wants to know for certain I said. We would arrange for consultation, a neurosurgical evaluation for their recommendations. I expected they would recommend surgery, at least a biopsy. “But that’s pretty messy isn’t it?  I don’t know as I’d want all that.”  He said.

I cautioned against fatalism.  “There is the possibility of an abscess, a lingering small area of infection.  Or some other cause possibly.  But yes, it does look like a malignancy, cancer, at this point.”

We arranged for the consultation.  The family dealt with the news.  And two weeks later, in our regional hospital the surgeons prepared to cut out his brain cancer, saving as much of the important tissue as they could for this active vital husband, father and professor. 

But they found that it was an abscess.  It was a pocket of infection that was drained and after weeks and months of IV antibiotics he recovered fully.  So, we always, whenever possible, press for a tissue diagnosis.

Why am I digressing into these doctor stories? Why can’t I just stick to the coroner story line? My mind just blends them. It was the work I did.

I remembered another case that didn’t go so smoothly. An elderly woman with a hysterectomy years before came to me with episodes of vaginal bleeding. She was overweight. On pelvic examination I could feel no mass or see a source for the bleeding, but imaging studies showed a growth in her pelvis suggestive of a malignancy. The surgeon and I suspected an ovarian cancer that had infiltrated the vagina as the cause for intermittent vaginal bleeding. He opened her abdomen to prove the diagnosis. As he looked around, he saw abnormal tissue growths everywhere. He assumed it was cancer and did extensive dissection. Specimens were sent to pathology. The extensive surgery required a week in the ICU and months of healing for recovery. The pathology report four days after the surgery described the tissue as endometriosis.

This is uterine tissue that has migrated out of the uterus and is growing in other parts of the abdomen. She had been on post menopausal estrogen replacement. All we had to do was stop her hormones and the endometrial tissue would dissolve. It did. But a timely tissue diagnosis during the surgery would have saved her from the four-hour operation and prolonged recovery. We don’t always get it right.

But this elderly dead man that is not the fireworks had gone to a specialist and the procedure for the diagnosis had been difficult and fruitless.  He had suffered two endoscopies and an attempted needle biopsy through his abdomen.  Neither could obtain tissue to prove the diagnosis.

The pancreas can be hard to reach.

However, given his condition and presumed diagnosis treatment had been started.  Chemotherapy poisons had begun, and their chemical insults were affecting him even more than the undiagnosed illness. 

He was an elderly bachelor and had lived at home, alone by himself outside of town. But now the effects of the chemotherapy had required him to be in a nursing home for a few days stretching into weeks because of his nausea and weakness. 

But he was still his own man.  He walked the halls and with permission of his physician went out of the care center on passes in his old pickup.  And now he was dead at his home 10 miles out of town. And I was going to look at him.

When I drove out there the sky was darkening. You could see the occasional skyrocket from the private backyard, illegal celebrations of this holiday. Impatient children cannot wait for the late darkness in these northern latitudes at this time of year.

There were two sheriffs’ cars in the driveway. The sheriff himself came up to me in the gravel. I didn’t usually run into him on these calls. He must have taken the holiday shift this year. “He’s out here in the back,” he said leading the way.  I followed and told him I knew the man and some of his medical history.

“Is it a suicide?”  I asked.

“Well, it looks like it, gunshot wound to the head, but we haven’t found the weapon.”

“Did he leave a note?”

“Well, maybe.  They say he was a man of few words and there’s a note by the front door that says Jimmy, that’s his nephew, is to get his .44 caliber pistol.  He has a lot of guns and I guess he wanted to make sure that this kid got that specific one.  I guess it was the kid’s favorite or something.”  He was standing over the crumpled body of the old man.  It lay parallel to the back concrete porch.  There was a sliding glass basement door behind us. The hills and timber rose to the north.  A barn stood 100 yards off to the east.  There was still some glow, but the sky was darkening by the minute; near time for the fireworks show to start.

“No weapon huh?”  I asked.  There was tall grass from the concrete porch down to a seasonal creek behind the house.  I assumed they’d looked hard before calling me.

“Not that we could find, but we haven’t moved his body yet.  We were waiting for you.” 

I stood over the head.  Entrance wound above the right temple; exit wound must be down below. He was lying on his left side facing north, his back to the house.  His cap and glasses were off in the tall grass a couple yards to the east.  I picked up the hat. There was a bullet hole on the left side of the crown.  “There’s your exit wound.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s roll him over.”  I checked and he was cool with a little rigor.  “Who last saw him?”

“A neighbor drove by and saw him in the yard around one o’clock. He checked out of the care center this morning on a pass. His son came out and found him here about five o’clock.  That’s when we got the call.”

I bent to pull on his downside arm and roll him onto his back. He was a small, withered old man. My eyes moved over him, and I saw the revolver. It lay down by his ankles in the darkening wet grass.  The deputy and sheriff photographed and inspected the weapon.  38 caliber Smith & Wesson.  Two shells, both spent.

“That’s typical, one test shot then the real one.”

With him on his back we could see the exit wound.  It was large and gaping on the left side of his skull.  Instant. 

We three, the sheriff, the deputy and I, stood over the body and tried to make the scene come back together.  His cap and glasses had flown off to the east, but his right hand had been to his temple.  Was he facing the house?  How had he stood as he shot himself?  These sorts of questions were going through our heads.  We were trying to get an answer to the last minute of this man’s life, looking for the final diagnosis.  It made no sense that this man would die looking into his basement windows with those beautiful rolling hills calling for his last attention.

“Look, if he stood here and was looking out at the barn and the trees, maybe a little to the east and shot with his right hand, the hat would come off over there where it landed. Then he must have spun almost all the way around before he fell down.”

“Yeah,” the sheriff said.  “That must have been it.  I don’t think he was looking at the house.  He must have been facing northeast, up that way; looking at the hills, the trees, and the barn.  And then the gun fell right to his feet.  And he spun around as he fell.”  We were trying to come up with an understanding, even though we knew it didn’t really matter; making out all the details, so that it would make sense. There was nothing here we could treat, maybe, except ourselves.

“Can’t blame him really, what he’s gone through.  What he’s facing.”

“No.”  The sheriff, the deputy, and I looked at the ground.  It seemed we understood the cause.  We were just doing our little study of the details to make our jobs more meaningful.  Put some order or sense to what we knew.

I drove home wondering if we made any difference. There were more skyrockets in the blackened sky.

Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head

Manner of death: suicide

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