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Saw the Mohs specialist today who informed me that Hoxsey's paste is no longer used. Patients complained that it caused to much irritation.

I will be going in for a day surgery on October 23rd to remove a basal cell cancer on the upper arch of my left outer ear.

This is a localized cancer that does not spread through the body but if not treated will continue to grow in the area it occupies.

There will be a small pit remaining where the affected tissue is removed.

If it proves too distracting to onlookers, I can have it repaired with plastic surgery.

Thanks to the doctors at Group Health who caught this early and to Medicare who will pay most of the bill.

In the 1940's as a 15 year old I worked summers at B. B. & S. under the tutelage of my mentor, Mr. Henderson.

Several lessons were dedicated to the stupidity of medical doctors who refused to acknowledge the genius of Harry Hoxsey, the lay doctor, former coal miner and insurance salesman, who advertised "Dr. Hoxsey's Cure for Cancer."

Hoxsey started his clinic in 1920 with a "sure cure" for any kind of cancer based on a handed down story about a horse that developed an ulcer. The animal was pastured in a field containing certain herbs. In time, the horse cured itself.

Hoxsey recreated a mixture of those herbs and teaming up with a radio announcer advertised to the world he could cure any sort of cancer.

Although he did no actual testing and tests by medical labs showed that internal use could make a patient extremely ill and in some cases cause death, by 1950 he was treating 8,000 patients a year with a revenue of $1,800,000.

A Canadian study showed that many of his "cures" did not show cancer symptoms in the first place and that a high percentage of his patients died of cancer after treatment.

He sued the AMA for slander and won. The judge awarded him $2. ruling that because most of Hoxsey's advertising was based on the idea that the AMA was persecuting him because they knew he was right and they were wrong he had suffered no monetary loss.

The Hoxsey case became a cause celebre with the top right-wing agitators of the day. Apparently Mr. Henderson subscribed to a right wing news letter and felt Mr. Hoxsey's pain and possibly sent a dollar to help the multimillionaire, Hoxsey, in his fight.

Tonight I was doing some research on treatment of basal cell cancer on the ear by the Mohs method. I was surprised to find that part of the treatment was the removal of cancerous cells using a caustic substance derived from some of the herbs used in Hoxsey's magic cure.

Well, Mr. Henderson, a lot of big lies are based on small truths.

Mike posted my picture that was taken a few years ago next to a 1929 Franklin ragtop. It is not my brother's but similar. It came into the world the same year I did.

My wife put together a great 80th birthday party for me at Anthony's Homeport in Kirkland. The staff there did a job far beyond the ordinary. With forty guests including those from California and Eastern Washington as well as locals, it was a night to remember.

My boys gave me a thoughtful present, an Amazon Kindle, the adjustable size print is perfect for my diplopia.

I was just listening to a local rabble rousing talk show host rail against a possible state tax hike in these troubled times. I don't like taxes any more than the next guy but it brought to mind a story Grandfather B told me.

On arriving in this country he had worked in Philadelphia where members of his family had settled. He then migrated West where other members of his family resided in Walla Walla.

In 1921 he returned to Europe to rescue his family. On his return he stopped in Philadelphia.

Looking up an old friend he was appalled that his formerly prosperous friend was obviously having financial problems.

It seems that after WWI a brief recession had undermined the value of the scrap metal he collected door to door with his horse drawn wagon.

He said he loved his old pal but things got so bad he had to retrench. To be kind to the horse he cut it's food ration by half each week and you know what? The ungrateful animal died. The man did not have money to buy another.

Grandfather B suffered from a bad back.

Years of lifting six foot long two hundred pound wool bags had left its mark. He wore a back brace corset to ease the pain.

In the days before Valium and Advil the only possible help was surgery. Even more "iffy" in the early 1940's than now.

Our local doctor recomended a young professor of neurosurgery at Oregon University Medical school.

Grandfather decided that for a delicate operation such as this he wanted the "best" so he wrote to family members in Philadelphia asking them to make inquiries.

The answer came back. Don't come here. You have the "best" in your own back yard at the University of Oregon Medical School.

Incidently, this physician operated successfully on Aunt Dorothy about 1960 and with a protege on my late wife in 1974. He had been consulted and was on standby when JFK was shot in Dallas.

In the attack on the Health Bill the question of the status of aliens really seems to be bugging a lot of people.

Our foreman at B.B & S. was Mr. Henderson who passed away in 1959. Mr. H. had worked for my grandfather in Walla Walla. Grandfather retired in 1939. He went on to work for grandfather's successors.

I know from conversations with him that he had worked for others in the area prior to working for my grandfather so he was living in the area for forty to fifty years

He owned a home. His two sons worked their way through a private college. He paid all taxes required.

He was a Canadian citizen.

I found this to be true when he complained about having to register as a resident alien at the post office every January.

He said he was born a Canadian and felt that that was where his citizenship should be.

Is this the type of person the naysayers are afraid of.

Also a concern, I remember reading Edgar Allen Poe's Mask of the Red Death. In this story all of the Elite of the country gathered in the palace to be safe from a plague.

The unworthy were left outside to suffer and die.

To celebrate this brilliant plan a masked ball was held. At midnite when they unmasked the contageous had joined the party and all were exposed.

Tom-----?

I am trying to remember the Russian expression my father used to use for a non- sequiter.

A Russian peasant walked in to a bar and ordered a vodka. Tossing that down he ordered another and another

He exclaimed to the bartender, "You aren't refilling my glass to the top!"

The phrase translates. "Well, of course,because you are leaving some in the bottom.