david f - just wanted to let you know how much I'm enjoying following your posts; especially touched by what you wrote about your gran.

Also excuse me if this is off topic, but davidf I often think of an opinion I think you put a fair while ago re: use of the word 'humbled' (am I correct - was it you who pointed out how misused it is?) whenever I see the word in the news. Well everyone is experiencing humble-overdose I see with reports of Australian of the Year and sports and such. It seems that hardly anyone winning awards can think of anything else to say nowdays. I wish they had read that post about the (mis)use of the word humble :)

Yabby and Examinator. Circumcision is very rarely practiced in Australia these days, due to too many babies dying from the quite common complications of post-surgery bleeding or infection.

These sad deaths far outweighed any perceived benefits of cleanliness or supposed easier contraction of sexually transmitted diseases.

The only circumcisions allowed in public hospitals are those needed for medical reasons ( in W.A. anyway)- usually if the baby has an unusually tight foreskin or other penile abnormality. They are fully anaesthetised for these procedures.

If babies are to be circumcised for religious reasons, eg if they are Jewish , then the parents have to make their own arrangements. They usually know a Jewish doctor or a Rabbi who will do the job.

Unfortunately there are still some men who want their boy to 'look like them' and seek to have him circumcised. They will need to shop around for a sympathetic Doctor (usually an old Doctor) and try to find a private hospital to have it done.

I was a midwife in the late 80s when more circumcisions were attended than now. I held down more babies than I care to remember.

This used to involve holding a baby down flat on his back with his legs held tightly apart, while a doctor cut off the foreskin from the very sensitive and non-anaesthetised penis.
The baby screamed blue murder and was in obvious excrutiating pain.

It was truly awful to watch, and for the most part the mother waited outside and listened to the screams while daddy was elsewhere!
Needless to say, I was keen on having daddy watch the procedure while holding his son down!
It is a barbaric practice.

Dear David F,

Thank You for the song.
So very clever!
I enjoyed it immensely !

Dear Yabby,

To answer your big question -
No. He hasn't been circumsized.
That wasn't the choice of his parents -
although it would have been mine - had
they asked me - for health reasons.

Dear Examinator,

You're spot on as always!

Dear Pynch,

I agree with you - David F, certainly has the
gift of using his words superbly. He is an
excellent storyteller - and if he ever writes
his memoirs - I'd certainly buy a copy.
The author - Bryce Courtenay once declared,
"Each of us has been designed for one of two
immortal functions, either as a storyteller
or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder,
love and daring. When we cease to tell or listen,
then we no longer exist as a people..."

Dear Foxy,

I am writing my memoirs. However, I assume they would only be of interest to my descendants and not even all of them. My granddaughter, Melanie, used part of them for a presentation at school. She said they got a good reception. However, ninth graders are not usually discerning literary critics.

A section of my recollections:

"A German shepherd dog drank out of a toilet bowl in Poughkeepsie. Perhaps that is my earliest memory of the world not being quite right. I was a small child but knew enough not to drink out of a toilet bowl. Yet the dog did it. It bothered me greatly. I have since heard an explanation. Water is usually not changed frequently enough in a dog’s dish. The dog didn’t think of what else people do in a toilet bowl. Why should it? We go swimming in bodies of water but don’t usually think of what other bodies, human and nonhuman, do in that body of water. Fish use it as a toilet. W. C. Fields said that’s why he stuck to whiskey. This is a memoir and a family history, not a history of waste disposal, so that is the last on that subject.

I was peeling a hardboiled egg in a dining room in Springfield, Massachusetts. I was carefully trying to remove the shell and the skin under the shell. A much older relative snatched the egg from my hand. “Let me do it for you.” She rapidly removed the shell and returned the peeled egg. It had little indentations in it where her fingernails had gouged pieces of the egg. I could have done the same thing myself. I was peeling the egg slowly and carefully so the egg would emerge with a smooth unblemished surface. I resented her ‘help’ but said nothing. I suppose I have been guilty of also rushing in when the recipient of my assistance knows perfectly well what he is doing."

Dear David F,

I repeat - I for one would buy
your memoirs with the greatest
of pleasure.

You've just confirmed what I've
written about you earlier - you're
a superb storyteller bar none -
and I'm sure that there would be
heaps of other people that would
be interested in buying your book.

It would be a real page turner -
a wonderfully inspiring and
entertaining read!

Please let us know when its completed -
and where we could get hold of a copy ?

Foxy - thanks for the beaut quote! I reckon I'd buy copy of davidf's memoirs too, or any book that he authored.

I agree with you too re: circumcision although I know it's an unpopular decision these days. Two different friends (several years apart) had sons who developed phimosis (and circumcision at ages 8 and at puberty). One of those friends had boys afterwards and insisted they be circumcised; saying she'd never put a child through that again.

Suzie things sure must have changed. My son was circumcised; we did it right in the GP's surgery. We were both present and I just cuddled him on my lap. After undoing his nappy and applying a dab of anaesthetic gel, the doc injected anaesthetic straight into a vein near the pubic bone. He then put a plastic bell on the penis with an edge just under the foreskin. Catgut was wound around the indent of the bell; over the foreskin. The nappy was done up again and he didn't seem to notice. The bell and tip of the foreskin dropped off in his nappy about a week later.

This is somewhat like it, though the bell looked shorter.

http://www.circlist.com/instrstechs/plastibell.html

Thus, to quote, "Despite overwhelming evidence from urological surgeons that neoplasm of the penis is a lethal disease that can be prevented by removal of the foreskin, some physicians continue to argue against routine newborn circumcision in a highly emotional and aggressive fashion" [Dagher et al., 1973]. In the interests of public health, such ignorance must be eliminated.

http://www.circinfo.net/cancer_of_the_penis.html

The PKU test, on the other hand, WAS barbaric, though I think that particular nurse was just cruel. It's a necessary test of course.