Do you remember the Maytag Repairman commercials? The middle-aged gentleman sitting in the Maytag Office with his Maytag uniform on and sleeping most of the time? The phone would ring and it would wake him up and startle him. Most of the time it was a wrong number or a salesman. The premise was Maytag’s are so reliable that you never needed to call the repairman. I have to say that my experience with Maytag’s really is close to that. In any case, I was sitting in my office today about 3 p.m. after seeing 9 patients for the day. I had already paid my bills, took a short refresher in reading EKG’s, surfed e-bay looking for a pellet stove, talked to about 9 hospital employees about the weather. I had my feet up on my desk and was drifting off when my nurse came in to tell me a patient was ready. She startled me and I was a bit embarrassed as my feet fell off the desk. I rather quickly apologized and said I feel like I am the Maytag Repairman today. My very capable and most pleasant nurse looked at me rather puzzled and said: “well I’m not sure what that means but ok, if you say so.” It occurred to me that she had never heard of the Maytag Repairman commercials. I asked her when was she born and she told me 1976. Ahh, I said, yes, those commercials were mostly before then. In addition, I reflected, that’s when I graduated from High School. Of course, it shook me up a bit, realizing my age, but I went on to earn my keep. On my way home I reflected on the fact that I took care of two hospital patients and saw a few complicated ones in the office with extensive medical histories and really did earn my keep after all. Rather than let my age awareness bother me, I was thankful for it as I watched the streams and cedar trees go by. I was thankful that I have lived long enough to tell my nurse about the Maytag Repairman commercials. I am sad, yet also thankful that I have already out-lived many special friends. Why God has allowed me this I don’t know, but I thank him for it. I am thankful that I am back home in the country of my youth. I am thankful for the smile and the laugh that comes over me as I get home by 4 or 4:30 and still have so much time left in the day to enjoy the lake, and the swans, and the gulls, and the eagles and the hawks that go overhead. To think that I would still be buried in a mountain of charts and traffic and go go go if fate hadn’t yanked me from the darkness. I can appreciate Eddy Albert more in Green Acres when in the opening song he reflected thus, about thanking God for the country life, the chores, etc. I am thankful that I don’t have a wife like Zza Zza Gabor who thinks more of stores than God’s beautiful country. There is a fog over Lake Michigan, but there is no fog in my head.