Beware the ides of March

That would be tomorrow,the ides, most famously recalled in the soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar,  but perhaps tomorrow will arrive sans snow and full of sun.  For anyone unfamiliar, Google the ides and there is  a plethora of information and websites.  Today there was a pale cast to the sky amplified with an early AM phone call of not so welcome tidings, pre Ides.  Yesterday I had my annual mammography and this morning the radiologist office called to require my returned presence--my left boob is in question, recalled, if you will.  This has never happened before to me, so while I am keeping a positive front, I am concerned.  I have learned that 1 in 10 women have a recall on their routine mammography screening. 



Mayo clinic mammo photo  I have never seen this technician



The clinician  yesterday seemed not as about business as  what I've had in the past, she neither squeezed, compressed nor twisted me in standing and sideways positions as I have been  done to before.  She took only one frontal and one side shot per boob.  I am accustomed to more agony and photos and so perhaps I must return for my fair share.  

When the unwelcome call came that I would have to go to La Crosse where they have greater equipment, I  joked, "what my boob has outgrown Onalaska?  I have had no change in cup or bra size"  Both clinics are just across the river but I have preferred Onalaska, the newest.  While the clinician laughed, she proceeded to offer other times for my left boob recall.    I am concerned and thinking of what ifs simultaneous to making a joke and shrugging it off.  After all, why worry now, do not borrow trouble which can come time enough.  Still, my left boob, favored side on which I sleep, bigger of the pair, is in question; I have had no symptoms nor concerns.  I am blessed to have Mayo clinic and a doctor who is a professional worry wart and while it could be nothing I think about the women whom I buried after they lost their battles with breast cancer and I think about survivors and pink today and I say, "time will tell, wait and see...."    
A large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine proved that isn’t the case.  All women have a 5% to 15% chance of being recalled. It doesn’t mean you have breast cancer. In fact, the odds are against it.   Radiologists are looking for two main signs of cancer: mass (tumors) and calcification. When a woman gets regular annual mammograms the radiologist compares the current year’s views with last year’s. If anything looks different or develops, returns for additional views or studies are taken to tease out what is being seen. Women develop benign tumors which may grow larger but do not spread to other parts of the body and calcifications all the time. These are quite common and include cysts, fibroadenomas, and solid masses. Calcifications occur most often simply as a result of the natural aging process from the degeneration of tissue"

I think of that old comical Mammogram poem that has made the email rounds for ages and copied in old xerox machines  prior to that.  It is online for the looking but I recall some lines long ago memorized, .... For years and years they told me, "Be careful of your breasts."   Don't ever squeeze or bruise them, and give them monthly tests.  So, I heeded all their warnings.....and protected them by law.... Guarded them very carefully, and always wore a bra.....   and on it goes.....I do not want to repeat it in entirety because I find it tedious to have reiterations, just as some late comers to email repeat and recirculate old articles, jokes, fables....so I refrain. 

Uncle Carl  Third or Fourth grade

Another thing, the month of March now feels

Aunt Jinx, Virginia
Second grade photo 

strange because I have two less  birthday cards to send; two cards for which I would search to find just the right sentiment.  

 March had birthdays of my late Aunt Jinx and Uncle Carl.  She was born March 1, 1921 and would have been 92 this year.  She was mom's older sister.  Uncle Carl, Mom's older brother was born March 21, 1918 and would have been 95 this year.   She died in 2009 and he in 2011.  The last of my elderlies, the last of the old family.  Now I am the old family. 

Love this photo of my late  aunt and uncle taken on one of my visits, June 2008, sitting on his porch, their lives went downhill after this visit.  Notice both reflecting in the same pose, they laughed later, he saying, "oh she always copied me."  Isn't it always something.....hold the good thoughts.

Sepia Saturday 152 Males gathering

Although the week's prompt shows boys reading at the library and I am a voracious reader and a library lover I had no library type photos to share.  After pondering  while on one of my morning walks, I decided I could find something with males gathering.  Uncle Carl's archives of photographs offered up these from 1986-88, not really Sepia but some years back, from his man cavers  episodes.  He was fond of these hunting and fishing camps that he and several of his friends built as their retreats spending men only weekends, card playing, imbibing their favored spirits, passing time, clowning around and maybe some hunting but lots of camaraderie.  No women or children were ever included.  Well, the camps were rough, outdoorsy as you will see and I know my aunt Marge, his wife,  would have opted out even if the wives had been invited.   This was a time and a group of men who liked to get away from it all, be outdoors and spend time together. 

This camp is/was in Wharton, Pennsylvania, Potter county which is  in  the north central mountains of the state, about 170 miles from their homes in the southwestern region.  According to the 2000 US census this township had a total area of 61.8 square miles (160.1 km), all of it land and there were 91 people, 41 households, and 28 families residing there.  The population density was 1.5 people per square mile (0.6/km).  So it remains today a rural area where there is natural gas exploration as well as hunting for fowl, deer and other game.   I wonder if this old camp is still there and if men still gather for man cave weekends.     

Pennsylvania Map, Potter County in red,

Wharton is  in the southwestern tip

The men's gathering 1986 Wharton Camp

I do not know the full story  of the photos other than Carl delighted in being there and taking photos, above the men are gathering for their time sometimes a week sometimes  several days. Another photo not as clear, faded now shows maybe twice this number of men.   I think that is Carl sitting on the porch, he was the official trail boss and  bookkeeper for the group and made sure that all necessary supplies were stocked and accounted for and that each man paid his share. I imagine he would have addressed that at the beginning of any event.   The back of the photo merely says, "we are just gathering for the week."    Sometimes they had a day or two work detail and from the following photos that looks like what happened this time  but wait there is a mysterious ceremony of sorts occurring as well.  There are checkered shirts too as in the library prompt.  

 

Is that a monk in a brown habit, sack cloth,  anointing one of the men wearing the yellow garb?  Well he does have some sort of book in his hand and a big cross round his neck.  And pay attention to the bald man to the left of the one being blessed or baptized?   

The next thing we know the men are "taking measurements for the back porch" according to  Carl's note on the back of this photo. 

Here the father has gone into the ditch to help his son, Carl wrote their names and identified them as such and he says that "progress."  Strange how there are few workers among that crowd we saw gathering.   Where did they all go?   Evidence of the old adage, 20% of any group does 80% of the work.  

Progress continues, notice that small building in the background.
 One man in the ditch and  3 overseers now.
I told you these camps were primitive, men only.  
The man in the denim jacket with cowboy hat appears to 
have a mug of some  type of liquid refreshment. 

Good grief the monk returns, with the bald man in a robe of sorts.
The porch appears completed.  Are they blessing it?
The woodpile has been covered.

Uncle Carl loved a good laugh so I can only imagine how he enjoyed this escapade.  I do recall overhearing him say that they always had a ceremony of some sort at camps. 

 I have one last photo for this post dated 1988, two years later and it looks like they have had another ceremony.  The man on the far right in the spotted jacket  is Stan Debick (I met him when he came to Carl's funeral in 2011; he's the last of the elders of this group).  Why is  his  boot off and on the floor beside him?   The jug on the porch is Seagrams whiskey and it looks like the party is  underway...  

This is my Sepia post of men gathering, a stretch from the library, but I did have a book, checkered shirts and lots of boys grown to men.  

To enjoy others posts, click  on this link and as Alan says, sit back and spend some time

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2012/11/sepia-saturday-152-17-november-2012.html