The Mysterious Marvel of the Mary Rose

Methinks archaeology is a bit like walking around a cemetery: one remembers so many things, so many people and events long past, and one gets teary-eyed.  Then, after seeing the remnants, one marches over to the nearest Starbucks, orders a latte, and watches the living... cute babies, members of the opposite sex (out of reach for many reasons, not least age, time, and loyalties), the 'forbidden desserts' on display under glass, and the busy students hunched over their laptops cramming information into their cerebrae.  The piped in music buries the past just as effectively... until an old favorite drifts in.... and suddenly one is back in the past.....  I'm not sure I want to spend a whole lot of time in museums watching the rotting hulks of ships, like skeletons uncovered by a hurricane.  Life is stormy.  We all need peace.

All this said, I'm a student of history... maybe I should have become a pathologist, stuck in a general hospital doing autopsies.... I'll have to ask my friend Ed Uthman (a pathologist) how he decided on his path.... I don't even know if Ed does autopsies.... I've never asked him.

The renaissance period in Britain is truly fasinatining. The Queens and kings of that time wanted very much for progress. Had it not been for the Renaissance I don't believe modern civilization would exist.

well thank you doc for your comments.  i read the article and was thinking i was alone, in that mind set.
 
this is kinda for stoney, but is for all to read and take what you may.  yesterday i made some comments regarding disease, and unless your in some ones shoes, which is impossible, you have no idea of their perception on things.  that being said,
 
in 2003 my 19 year old was enjoying a rare 8 inch snow fall here.  she was on a sled and just fell off.  in the soft fall, somehow she broke her c4,c5,c6,c7 and was not breathing.  the kids with her, all 19 year old or so, knew enough to not move her, she was blue, they pack the snow around her and each starting breathing into her nose, without moving her.  this happened 75 snake crooked country roads away from any medical facility.
 
long, long, long story made short,  she coded so many times i've lost count.  a marvel to me is this, one of the world top nuerosurgeons was teaching at the medical science teaching facility, that was the only option.  she's here today on planet earth.  going to a university, married,
 
she functions at c8, t1.  impossible by medical experts. 
 
adapt is her motto.
 
i choose peace.  it's a choice.
 
 

mind over matter can happen.  see, 7 weeks before that, i was involved in a life altering accident, where the love of my life, so far...........at that point, was killed instantly, breaking his neck.  one milliasecond they're wrapped in your arms, riding on a harley, cruising a beautiful highway, you don't even have time to blink, and you wake up ten days later in a trauma unit, with your world changed so dramatically that you think you'd like to die, it's the worst you know.......so far.
 
a cake walk compared to my 19 year old.
 
a little perspective (cognative) goes a long way. 
 
enjoy the now. live your life living.

Be here now.
 
It means so much...

"lovely to see you again my friends"  Enjoy your day wherever you are, delight in whatever you may do......    but I gotta say that I do love the look of the old map at the top of the page...

Stoney, Opening day is tomorrow........and we got a touch of snow last night.   Go Cubbies!!!!!!!!     It's their century...  Peace out

 Cuukoo1,

Wow, you're my new heroine and I feel like a whiner, which I am actually.

Oddly, this village is the only place that I do much crabbing and then, mostly as a result of having been blindsided by information that had been available for doctors to see for years. They either didn't or did and failed to tell me.

Interestingly, I took it all out on the one guy who, having figured that I must have known all along, talked about advanced kidney disease. I was mean.

Then, having been tossed atop that grenade rather than jumped, I looked around and decided: "Better me than someone, anyone, else in our family." And even that isn't really generous. It just seems more manageable my not having that extra gloom and despair chromosome that our kids acquired from their mother. She can't help it but I love her for trying.

The diminished kidney function corresponds to prescription meds all of which admit a bit of risk to some users. Somebody makes those stats.

My situation is really just an unexpected bump in a road that was never especially rose-borderd to begin with and the recent upward blip I attribute to all of the positive positive support and prayers from friends as well as my own natural sunniness.

I could not possibly agree more that openness to the positive is important and your own experience with horrendously catastrophic events and the way you have come through them, is strong evidence of that. Bless you all!

I'm more likely experiencing a little burden shifting rather than lifting but I'm not passing any babies, puppies or old folks without stopping to: chuck a chubby chin; scratch an ear; rub a tummy or pat a hand- just in case.

You are a gem for bringing your whole self here to share and I will never forget you.



 

I have always been amazed at how safe we all feel here, to share what we have shared, things some of us wouldn't tell anyone else. And I've been even more wonderfully affected by the responses of the community when any of us let the guard down a bit sometimes.
Never before have I fallen in with a group of such consistent good will, and I like it.

I went to Miami to see a specialist, and had a great time. Not really a vacation, but still...
 
Miami was GOOD! Miami made we want to walk, made me want to watch pelicans, and buy floaty dresses with spaghetti straps, oh yes...
Miami, city of freckles, of brown shoulders, of sand and Fendi, Pucci and Gucci, Prada and Escada, of Cuban restaurants and Thai, of light rail trains and the sky full of planes.
I met Russian Jews and Cubans, a Joizy doc and Costa Ricans, a Spanish don who drives a bus-the variety was wondrous.
The shops and restaurants are amazing, overwhelming...pastel houses with red tile roofs, the city sold itself to me, and I took some of it home.

Like a lot of guys, I'm not very good at extending sympathy or expressing compassion on a one-to-one basis... my default is 'they'll think I'm just substituting words for actions'... and then there are those horrible realizations that one should have done something -- but it just wasn't obvious in the instant that it was the 'right thing to do'.  

This is all an awkward way of saying I hope having a gang of us commenting helps rather than annoys those here who are having problems.... sometimes silence is golden; other times a kind word is important.... I hope those on the receiving end credit those of us who are mystified and do or say the wrong thing... Even though the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I suspect the shortcut to hell is indifference....

And then there's the idea that ignoring pain, and providing a bit of levity is helpful... The jury's out on that....

As some of you may remember from early on, my husband is a retired archaeologist who published a book last year on the archaeology of the Falls of the Ohio Region.  He has never, needless to say, found anything like the Mary Rose, but when he did some historic archaeology elsewhere, he did find building foundations that were unexpected, and was able to do a bit of filling in of the historic record for that group (another publication).  Indiana Jones not withstanding, the life of an archaeologist is just plain dirty hard work and hours spent doing laborious analysis of artrifacts.  Not too romantic.  In fact, he found that there was a strong correlation between the location of the best sites and the growth of the most amazing specimens of poison ivy. Since you are off onto living with health issues, I want to also put in my two cents worth there.  I have found the most fulfilling way to spend my retirement years.  I teach water therapy classes at a wellness center.  I have learned that people can live with the most unbelievable problems and histories and still have such a positive attitude and sense of humor.  Time and time again I am overwhelmed with some of the stories I hear.  And I am just so happy to be able to make a difference in the lives of these few people.  When someone comes in and tells me that they can put on their shoes and tie them without sitting down for the first time in years, I am thunderstruck.  Just to be able to lead a normal life, doing the normal, every day things we all take for granted is incredible.  A woman told me just this past week that she got herself out and was able to cut the grass for the first time on two years, had the strength to do it, the endurance to finish it, and was not sore at all the next morning!  We all applauded.  I have learned not to be too critical of others and their struggles because we have no idea what burdens they are carrying and what hisrory they have lived through.  cuukoo1, my heart goes out to you.

How the heck do you get this to separate paragraphs!?  Never had this problem earlier on!

Well, Doc, an old friend told us that she enjoyed the left-brain, right-brain, ballerina contributor because it was like being on drugs without being on drugs,

So, everything goes apparently.

Most people that I know about are appreciative of eavesdropping without guilt. Now, if they would just say hello.

Spin,

Most people are using whatever the usually write with and then copying and pasting. A bit awkward but it keeps insanity at bay.

Odd that they haven't figured it out. And isn't it interesting how you don't know how important breaks are until they're gone? That sounds deeper than I meant.

Not really, Stoney: First, you are deep even when you may not set out to be.  Second,  J.S. Bach held forth often and loudly on 'the importance of rests' in music -- the silent places betwen notes that matter more than notes, which rests set up, all but create, in a sense. He's right.  Because he writes nice lines for altos I love his music, and what he says of 'the silences-between' is true not just of his but of any music.  That you have my thoughts and prayers you well know, dear. Every day.  And no matter your subject, no matter The Topic (may or may not coincide, sometimes even intersect! for all of us), your quick wit, broad knowledge and 'natural sunniness' lighten many a load amongst us.  And odd as this may read, given we've not been face-to-face (but hope triumphs over experience, and I have hope!), I trust you'll say if ever we're too heavy-handed in our concern; another joy about this, us, is you can do that. 
 
cuukoo1, my heart, too, goes out to you and your child.
 
Spinner, what grand, full lives you and your husband have...thanks for the stories.  A friend who has taught swimming all her adult life now learns she has cardiac problems so serious she's told to move from her two-story house to something without stairs -- yet doc says ok to continue teaching swimming, I suppose because to her body, it's almost like breathing....  Learn something new every day, dont'cha know (tip of the cap to John for use of his phrase).  
 
Run bake something for sick pal, back to y'all later. I hate to leave....
 
The paragraph thing puzzles me, too; I wrote recently The Big Editor must be also a word-lover, for he often does more than play with paragraphs: He rearranges our comments' order, apparently enjoying play-with-words as much as we.  Love to be a fly on his wall, or inhabit his mind for a few minutes....
 
 

I happened to see the Mary Rose when I was in Portsmouth England in 1985. It had been placed in its protective collar and was being constantly hosed so as to keep the wood from drying and turning to dust. It was evident that this would be a monumental undertaking, and would cost millions. Fortunately, for future generations the project will be completed along with hundreds of artifacts being restored. It should be noted that these great ships that sailed the seven seas, and engaged in ferocious naval battles were not as large as the lifeboats on the QE2.