Rushing's Ramblings

I never considered myself poor when I was growing up until a former high school classmate mentioned recently that she didn't realize she had been poor as a child until she was an adult. Our small community consisted of identical houses adjacent to a petroleum plant.  All our fathers worked in the plant.  There was a school for grades one to twelve, a grocery store, a post office, dry cleaners, and a gas station. While her comment gave me pause for a minute, I still don't have the same perception of our childhoods. We didn't have everything we wanted, but we all had everything we needed. Most of our fathers had been in WWII and eagerly accepted jobs at the petroleum company plant when the war was over. We lived in houses provided by the company that sat on land owned by a local rancher. I was in middle school when the company allowed employees to buy homes. I wonder if it was a good deal or if families had a choice, as the land the houses sat on still belonged to the r...

I must have been around six or seven when my father decided to shoot a wild turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. He also thought our hunting expedition would be the perfect time to teach my older brother and me to shoot rifles. We were enthusiastic wannabe hunters, so the three of us went on a bitterly cold November day in the Texas Panhandle to find a turkey in the Canadian River bottom. The Canadian River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, begins in the Sangre de Christo Mountains in New Mexico and flows through the Texas Panhandle on its way to Oklahoma. When it reaches the drought-prone Panhandle, the river becomes a trickle of water in many places. Yo u might think of the Panhandle as flat, and you'd be right, except for the area around Borger and Phillips. Palo Duro Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of Texas," is located 75 miles south of my hometown. Since the Panhandle is over 3,000 feet above sea level and semi-arid, much of the land is unencumbered by trees and...

Next door to the rehabilitation hospital that I managed a few years ago in south Florida was a heart hospital. The heart hospital was built a couple of years after my hospital opened. An indoor bridge separated my office from Dr. Smith's, the chief cardiac surgeon. Dr. Smith was originally from Dallas. I had lived there for many years before moving to south Florida, so we had something in common and instantly became friends. He had a lot of time on his hands, as the heart hospital was rarely at capacity. Seven hospitals within a 15-mile radius also had state-of-the-art cardiac programs, each touting theirs as the best in South Florida. At one time, there was an agreement between hospitals that they would specialize in different areas of medicine. Hospital administrations soon discovered the significant revenue from cardiac procedures and started their own heart hospitals. Subsequently, many cardiac beds stayed empty. Although cardiac surgeons are paid handsomely, they maintain t...

Reiki was developed in Japan in 1922 by Dr. Usui as an alternative form of medicine to reduce stress and promote healing through light touch, which transfers energy from the practitioner to the individual. Although I had heard of Reiki in the past, I had never experienced it personally. When I managed a rehabilitation hospital for those with recent strokes, amputations, head injuries, etc., I was contacted by a group of people who practiced Healing Touch, a similar treatment method. I agreed to let them use my hospital to train practitioners. We were cautious in introducing this to patients, as they were required to consent. Most patients were open to Healing Touch and reported feeling better and more relaxed after the sessions. I consider myself open-minded and wanted to give Reiki a try. A close friend has a daughter named Heather Elizabeth, who has her own Reiki practice. Heather Elizabeth is a licensed master's level social worker but found traditional psychotherapy me...