No, you can’t blame this one on sequestration.  It happened when there were plenty of Keystone cops running around the airport.  In fact, if there had been fewer security guards, the operation might have been more efficient.

The whole thing started last year when a good friend of mine, a retired Marine colonel, was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  I have read that one out of every six guys will eventually end up with prostate cancer.  The odds are no better than Russian Roulette.  Well the good news, if there is any, is that the ways of treating prostate cancer keep getting better

I have another close friend (I’m at the age where if you have six friends—) who when diagnosed, decided to use fiducial marker seeds to clearly identify where the radiation should be concentrated.  The seeds are about the size of grains of rice and are gold.  Well, his procedure was completely successful with practically no side effects.  He told me the other day that if he dies first, his wife wants the gold seeds!

My Marine buddy’s procedure was different.  It’s called brachytheropy.  Yes, there was implanting of seeds.  But, these seeds had radiation in them.  So the seeds could be planted close to or even in the tumor.  The only disadvantage in this procedure is that your wife doesn’t get any gold when you kick the bucket.

I have no way of comparing the two procedures.  I am clearly not qualified and I hope I don’t have to make a decision in the future.  I can say that both of my friends are doing exceedingly well.

Every year, my Marine buddy takes his wife and goes to Mexico for a couple of weeks.  They meet family and friends down there and he gets in a number of rounds of golf.  This year was no exception and a good time was had by all, until they tried to get home.

While passing in front of an immigration agent at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the agent’s radiation monitor alerted.  He was immediately arrested for trying to sneak radioactive material into our country.  I was personally pleased to find out we do have a system in place for identifying radioactive material coming into this country.  So he was thrown into the “tank” with a number of unwashed suspected illegal visitors from Central America.  That was the best part of the exercise.

The fun began when the security agents tried to locate the source of the radioactivity (clearly there was the possibility of a dirty bomb).  I was advised that at least three agents spent an hour scanning his groin with a half-a-dozen radiation meters.  Some didn’t work, some perhaps worked.  The problem was that the results needed to be inputted into a computer to get the results needed.  This required some knowledge and competence.  Shouldn’t he have had a letter from his doctor explaining all of this?  He did!  But the agents weren’t interested.  They had to follow their procedures.  And, of course, anyone devious enough to hide radioactive material in his prostate, wouldn’t have any trouble getting a bogus letter from a doctor.

My friend began to realize that if the folly continued, he was going to miss his connecting flight.  Let me politely say that he has a way of letting people know when he is unhappy.  And, he was becoming very unhappy.  The immigration agents decided to take him down to Customs.  Customs also deals with these issues.  Again he was zapped and questioned.  The Customs agent wanted to know if he had a letter from his doctor.  Duh.

The Customs agent bought the letter and gave him the green light.  Now all he had to do was get through security and find his gate.  By the time they passed through security, their flight had almost completed boarding.  He commandeered an overloaded curtesy cart and they made it to the gate with two minutes to spare.  He told me that for next years trip, he is going to purchase some lead skivvies.

Writted by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

Life is just a series of mistakes.  Some big, some small.  Some you recover from, some not so well.  How many times have you said, “I should have done this or that.  I should have said this or that.”  As you get older, you recover from mistakes better.  Sometimes you even do or say this or that, and sometimes things get better (and, sometimes worse).

When I was a kid, I had a nice smile.  There wasn’t much orthodontic work back then.  I don’t think we knew what an orthodontist was (someone who watched birds), but my teeth lined up fairly well.  I also had dimples, so I loved to smile.  When I was 11, I got into an argument with a kid at the movies on 40th and Waverly.  We went outside allegedly to fight.  One of my buddies told me that the other guy was too smart to fight me.  After we got outside and while I was waiting to see what was going to happen, he punched me right in the mouth.  I became furious and beat the hell out of him.  But my upper left front tooth was really loose and very painful.  That bit about the victors and the spoils is overrated.

The nerve of the tooth was dead.  It quit hurting, but over a period of time it started getting darker.  I ended up going to a dentist and having a root canal.  That was supposed to keep the tooth from getting darker and it probably did.  But I still had a dull tooth right in the middle of my smile.

I went through high school, undergraduate school and law school with a shaded tooth.  Under our present school system, I am sure there would have been a counselor to discuss my shaded tooth and self-esteem issues.

When I got in the military, I received free dental care.  At Fort Hood, Texas, I had a dental corps lieutenant colonel examining me.  He said, “Rice, you have a dark tooth and your eyes are too close together.  I said, “Colonel, it’s a good thing you are in the Army, because on the outside, with your bedside manner, you would go hungry.”  He said he couldn’t do anything about my eyes, but he could bleach my tooth.  And he did!  So for the next ten years, I had reasonably normal looking teeth.

Five tours later, I was teaching on the JAG School faculty on the grounds of the University of Virginia.  Mr. Jefferson called it the grounds and not the campus, so saying campus identifies you quickly as an outsider and, even worse, perhaps a Yankee.  My only concern is whether “grounds” should be capitalized?! 

One of my neighbors was a dentist at UVA and after examining my mouth, he decided that he might be able to make enough money out of my mouth to go into private practice.  I ended up with more caps than a toy six shooter.  He also decided that he should cap my troublesome front tooth.

The cap he put on my front tooth was too white.  It wasn’t as white as a Chiclet.  More like a four-day-old Chiclet.  We all knew it was way too white, me, the doc and his assistant.  I think this should be covered by the hippocratic oath.  I should have spoken up.  I should have said, “This is unacceptable.”  But, I felt like he was doing me a favor.  He had convinced someone down at Fort Lee to pay for it.  He was just getting his business started.  Blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, by not speaking up, I wore that headlight for the next twenty years.

Twenty some-odd years later, in the 1990s, I disposed of my four-day-old Chiclet once and for all and replaced it with perfectly normal, perfectly natural bridge.  They are now using my tooth at the Cape Henry Lighthouse at the mouth of the Chesapeake (from one mouth to another).

So there you have it.  Lots of little mistakes.  I shouldn’t have let that bastard sucker punch me.  I shouldn’t have let my neighbor, the dentist, stick that Chiclet in my mouth.  I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.  Here it is, 20 years later and I think I need a counselor.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com