Apr
14
A young boy peers out through a shattered wall in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(First published 30 years ago)
Democratic candidate Bill Clinton speaks at the New Hampshire statehouse in 1991.
This photograph hung in the White House, according to then President Clinton’s secretary.
A few years back, The Boston Globe published some of my New Hampshire memories.
Here’s one of my favorites, featuring a much younger Bill Clinton.
Back when my wife and I worked as photographers in New Hampshire, it was always fun photographing presidential candidates who swarmed the state. Bill Clinton was probably the most memorable. We met him many times, but three encounters stick out most in my mind.
Here’s my fun Boston Globe story about the time our Christmas card photo went horribly right.
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, R, NH and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, R, KS hold my baby daughter, Skye, for an ill-fated Christmas card photo back in 1994.
The trip was exhausting. We were behind the Iron Curtain and at the mercy of the official Soviet travel agency, Intourist. It was 1984. The Cold War was showing no real signs of flaring up or calming down, and my intestines were wracked with what I liked to refer as the commie crud. I sat in a hotel in downtown Moscow, across the street from an enormous statue depicting Russian space flight and all I wanted to do was bend over the toilet. I felt worse than the embalmed body of Lenin who laid in state just down the street.
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Nov
09
Haven’t we learned over the years that insurance companies know best? Why, just today I received a phone call from my doctor saying Blue Cross wasn’t allowing me to take a drug she prescribed. I’m glad that a faceless person in a call center somewhere denied me my medicine. Obviously they have access to all the most advanced medical technology in the world and can judge, far better than my doctor, what’s best for me.
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Jan
11
January is the wicked step-mother of months. Contradictory and contemptuous, January is sun, rain and snow, all in a half-hour’s time. It’s slushy toboggan runs and black ice on I-75. January is your passive aggressive co-worker who smiles in your face then shoves daggers of ice in your back. It’s not surprising, since the month is named after a two-faced Roman god.
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Rodney’s Book — A “cute” Leukemia — is available everywhere.
(This piss, er, piece premiered on Public Radio. Go to C-Living With Cancer — 8 minutes in.)
They monitor my urine here. The total cost of my stay to the insurance company will be probably well north of a quarter million dollars. But to the people that have to dump my collected urine, that cost is far too low. The nurses here at Karmanos Cancer Center need to know how much my output is keeping pace with my input, so no toilet for me; it’s a series of random jugs, some of them placed bedside in the middle of the night, some elsewhere. I’m the Easter Bunny of pee.Read More
Jul
10
Friday afternoon was mellow. Doctor was pleased I was flatlined with all my blood numbers barely able to raise their hands for roll call. A hospital cheeseburger with fries was on the way.
And then suddenly I’m Nigel, an aging British rocker in rehab.
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Jun
15
Chapter 1: The L-Word
Chapter 2: Having Fun With Cancer
Chapter 4 (today’s post):Departure Terminal
The parking lot’s mostly empty at our departure terminal, but the sun still hasn’t risen and activity is on hold for now. Most of the shift workers have completed their important duties and are just in monitoring mode, flipping through some magazines, making final notes in their endless computer ledgers, waiting.
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