Maple Syrup And Medicine?

[Gary Rice]

Dear Friends in Lakewood Land:

Just spent a delightful afternoon yesterday with some great people in the Rocky River Metroparks at their maple syrup event. Just two tenths of a mile south of Cedar Point road, there's a fine stand of young sugar maple trees, along with a sugar house. The sap was runnin' and the kettle was boilin'. A steady crowd of kids and their parents carefully navigated the still-icy mud road, down to the sugar house where they could sample pancakes with maple syrup, and get their pictures taken while neck-yoked up to a couple of sugar buckets. Every now and then, we took a bucket from a tree and dumped the sap into the boiler, taking care to evaporate 97% of water before the mixture was ready.

I just happened to have the old banjo in the car (smile) so there were a number of lusty sing-a-long songs put forth during the afternoon. There's something about the ring of a banjo in the cloudless clear outside air of a sunny afternoon under blue skies and maple trees. No one present even thought about the two feet of snow still on the ground. Indeed, I suspect that there were some even waxing nostalgic about all that soon-to-be-gone snow.

Maple syruping is just one of those rituals that happens for just a couple of weeks at the end of wintertime. It's just a bit early for springtime, but you do know that winter will soon be saying goodbye.

You may be aware that my dear dad, Robert Rice, passed away in January of this year at the age of 94. The banjo player Pete Seeger, passed away last January; also at the age of 94. Both men were WWII vets, songleaders, and loved a smile, good times, and helping to make a better world for others with their music. Both men were very active until their last days. Both men loved this, and all times of the year. While Dad looked forward to each day, he did not particularly pay attention to the weather or prefer one season over another. He, like Pete, was a fan of Ecclesiastes 3 in that Great Old Book. "To everything, there is a season....". While he might not have agreed with Pete on every political particular, they shared a love of music and a love of song. Just yesterday as well, we did one of Dad's songs at the Lakewood United Methodist Church. Music has a way of bringing people together, whatever their other differences in life might be.

Why don't we all pretend for a moment that we were all there at another maple sugar festival with Pete Seeger just a few years ago? Here's a YouTube link to that great song about maple sugaring that is also a fine metaphor for life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFeiFLv1HdE

Whether we're singing about "One shovel wide", or making maple syrup, or maybe even a new song about medical care, the important thing is that we're all thinking about making this old world better. Dad was always writing music. During his last really serious heart scare in August of 2013, he found himself in Fairview Hospital's Kemper Center. While recovering from his procedure,(while still in recovery there!) he even wrote a song for the facility and we later presented it to the staff.

The Kemper Center Song

The Kemper Center family, at Fairview Hospital
Is such a caring family. They fight for one and all!
Great doctors, nurses, helping, the patients who are there,
With smiles and hope and kindness, and special guided care!
Let's all sing and salute them. They serve us every way.
They help us face tomorrow, with better hearts today!

While Lakewood Hospital's future continues to be an understandable community concern, it is also a comfort knowing that Fairview is less than 4 miles away, and they did a great job with helping Dad to live for two more Christmases.

While we certainly try in life to retain as much as we can, we also really need to appreciate and value what we have.....left...

To everything, there is a season, indeed.....

Back to the banjo...

[Gary Rice]

Dad and I talked about this hospital business often, and as patients, we saw first hand the construction and vision that was transpiring at Fairview.

Yes, Lakewood Hospital was also doing some very nice improvements as well, but you have to wonder when it comes to that long-range vision thing.

I mean, no place to go and grow? Fairview was building on the side of a cliff, for goodness sake!

Sometimes, you just have to think outside the box, or in their case, over the cliff.

You all know the old saying about crisis bringing opportunities. The next year will tax the abilities of Lakewood's community and officials to think outside the box. We can either rise to a level of mediocrity, or get constructively (and medically) visionary. It's obvious that a hospital in Lakewood OF SOME KIND is very needed. We have a wide ranging demographic from well-to-do lake dwellers, to senior high-rises, to thousands of children in schools and on sports teams presently living in close proximity to a first-class medical facility, and all that does not even begin to include our thousands of stake-holding homeowners.

We need to ask ourselves very seriously (and right now!) exactly what sort of medical facility we want in Lakewood? It's easy to preserve one's academic objectivity until the red blood starts spurting from one's arm after a fall through a window, or when one gets a numbness on the side of one's face....

Then too, it's much more convenient to visit a sick loved one who is only 5 minutes away.

If Fairview could build over a cliff, Lakewood could build anything ANYWHERE that the Clinic or any other medical facility would like to have, in order to serve our city better. It's a matter of priorities.

Bear in mind too that some day, ALL of us will need acute medical care. Rich, poor, that does not matter.

The closer a hospital is, the better for all of us. Like schools, churches, libraries, and yes, businesses too, a first rate medical facility enhances the value of a community exponentially.

If you don't think so, your opinion will rapidly change the moment that your next medical crisis happens.

Regardless of how we got here, or whodunnit, to me, the question presently would be who will do it? Who will provide the vision, the win-win incentives to move first class medical care forward in Lakewood? Contrary to our present discussion, there is no officially signed agreement that I'm aware of...yet.

If we have the vision, we can keep our hospital. Don't doubt that for one moment. Better to build on a cliff than jump off it.

Let's roll up our sleeves and come up with some win-win thoughts here. It's one thing to bellyache and moan, and another... to build.

Back to the banjo.