For the record, I’m not particularly fond of small parties, either.

The carpenters at the San built Rutger. The carpenters built a lot of things for Mom and Gerry: Rutger, the seesaw, the elephant table, a bookcase. Probably more, though nothing else was passed down or photographed. The carpenters were fond of Mom and Gerry.

Four hundred or so people lived at the San in the early 1930s. Almost half lived in dormitories and worked there – carpenters, bakers, nurses, engineers, attendants, waiters, horse keepers, farmers, chauffeurs, teachers, butchers, clerks, pharmacists, physicians, and a dentist. One of the chauffeurs drove Mom to school in Middleborough. My grandfather Manny was the dentist. Manny, Nana, Mom, and Gerry were one of only a few families at the San, and they lived in one of the few houses on the grounds.

Mom said she and Gerry could see the morgue from their bedroom window. Gerry said they couldn’t. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, the morgue was near the house, and no one shooed the girls out when they wandered in. Not there or anywhere else – the operating theater, the lab, the barn.

They might have been shooed off the playground if they’d tried to play on the swings when other kids wanted to, but Mom and Gerry knew the rules, and they always had Rutger and the seesaw. The playground was for the inmates.

Today’s topic is another fungus, a fungus of my childhood.

Like every nerdy kid in the 1960s, I could say and spell the words “antidisestablishmentarianism” and “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” But unlike most nerdy kids outside the desert Southwest, I could also say and spell “coccidioidomycosis.” When I read about C. gattii yesterday, I couldn’t help but think about it — coccidioidomycosis, or Valley Fever. Like the killer disease du jour, Valley Fever infects humans and animals who inhale fungus spores. In the case of Valley Fever, the fungus is Coccidioides immitis, which resides in the local soil around Phoenix and other parts of the Southwest. After a dry spell, rain and wind dislodge the spores and carry them into the air, where they float, free for the breathing.

I breathed in my share. Whenever a dust storm rolled in, my brother and I would don our swim masks, run outside, and play in the carport until rain and lightning arrived, if it did. Driving through the desert on dirt roads or off-road probably kicks up spores, too, and Dad took us on more than a few dirt-road and off-road trips in the Wagoneer.

Like C. immitis, C. gattii, according to some sources, usually causes no symptoms or minor ones. Sciencemag.org’s Robert F. Service writes that “most of [Vancouver Island’s] 750,000 residents have been exposed to C. gattii multiple times with no symptoms.” That’s not to say these fungal infections are innocuous; serious infections have occurred particularly in the immunocompromised, such as transplant recipients or (especially before HAART) persons with AIDS.

Classic lens (c. 1965), new camera (2009), and best sister (pre-1965), not necessarily in that order.

I need to work on plenty of things, but today I was reminded of one in particular: impertinently pointing out mistakes (or worse, “mistakes”). Especially when I’m being a know-it-all, and especially when no lives are in danger. This afternoon, deep in know-it-all, no-lives-in-danger territory, I impertinently pointed out a “mistake.”

The reminder came a few hours later when I tripped over my own recent commission of the same “mistake” (blue arrow). Ouch.

Looks like a typo to me. At a glance, the breakdown by age seems inconsistent with the aggregate result.

Most (about 85%) of the survey participants fell into one of the three oldest age groups, all of which favored gay marriage at a lower rate than the general population. The 65+ crowd, numbering 507, favored gay marriage at a rate a full 17 points lower than the rate for all ages combined. Although young’ens favor allowing Adam¹ and me (or Autumn and Eve) to get married legally, and they smile with approval at a rate almost 20 points higher than the rate for all ages combined, there are too few of them (only 283) to balance out the manier² old grumps and middle-aged semigrumps.

I have no reason to suspect the Pew folks of vulpigeration, so I tried to find an honest basis for these apparently contradictory figures.

Pew’s full report on survey question Q146a revealed one potential source of slop: the number under “Favor” seems be the sum of two individually rounded percentages: one for “Favor” and one for “Strongly Favor.” The actual survey instrument included both possible answers. Therefore, 39% could mean anything between 38% and 40%. Survey percentages are routinely rounded, but one expects 39% to mean somewhere between 38.5% and 39.5%.

Even allowing for extra slop, the numbers don’t agree. Here’s a tabulation (using the increased slop allowance) that gives the minimum and maximum numbers of favorers in each age group and (by summing) the minimum and maximum number of favorers among those in any age category.

According to these numbers, between 34.8% and 36.8% of 1,980 respondents would be cool with my marrying Adam legally.

According to Pew’s summary chart (at the top), though, between 38% and 40% of 2,010 responses, or between 764 and 804 people, answered “Favor.” That’s quite a bit higher than the breakdown figures show, and even if the 30 people in no age category (who presumably withheld their age or were under 18) all favored gay marriage, the maximum (and an unlikely maximum, because it would require all the rounding and missing information to be skewed favorably) number of favorers is 759.

As another plausible scenario, I calculated a Total percentage based on the age breakdown but weighted according to the actual histogram of age in the U.S. Still no dice. If anyone has an idea, let me know.

¹ For the record, I’m currently Adamless and available

² manier, adjective. Comparative of many; more numerous. To be coined presently. Many and numerous are synonyms; if things can be more numerous, I see no reason they can’t also be more many, or manier.

Mom, in front of a Resort Airlines C-46 Commando, probably on her honeymoon in 1950, but surely before September 28, 1953. The plane in the photo crashed at Louisville airport that day and was subsequently written off.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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[1] I’ve never shown an interest in Old Spice.
[2] It wasn’t my dog. It was my God dog, Scudder (below).
[3] I’ve shown more interest in Albanese gummies.