From cigarette to pipe smoking – then I stopped. A personal saga

I reeked tobacco. People avoided me, but how did I know, if I couldn’t even smell myself? 
Your New Year's Resolution Number 2
Dr Abe V Rotor

I did not only smoke cigarettes, I graduated to pipe tobacco smoking. When you have tasted Half-and-Half or Captain Black, believe me Marlboro and Philip Morris taste flat. That’s how one gets addicted to more and stronger nicotine. And having a pipe on a Monday, and a dozen more to fit each day or occasion, and dress code, makes you stand out of the crowd, so to speak. Wow! Sikat! And you feel a special person. For in the seventies, up to now, pipe smoking people have either the British or American accent. I even tried Australian but settled poorly with Ilocano, my native tongue. Now compare pipe tobacco with pinadis (hand rolled cigar) tobacco, exaggeratedly foot-long. I almost forgot my origin.

So you see smoking is air, it is high society, it is macho, it is advertising something you do not really have, or have to. I wore coat and tie once in a while with Sherlock Holmes’ “S” pipe, or wore khaki jacket and denim pants and had MacArthur’s corn cob pipe. I also had pipes with the bowl covered with genuine leather from camel, kangaroo and anaconda, and made people believe I have gone all over the world including the Amazon. Which actually I hadn’t except a stopover once in Europe which introduced me to the idea of shifting to pipe smoking.

And I had a friend, Sel, who shared the same idea. So after finishing our doctorate, we started scouting for the best pipe in town. Definitely it should be briar wood because it’s the only wood that does not burn, and its nesting weight on the palm of the hand is assuring. I suspect that it’s being a briar is not the species but the age of the wood, perhaps as old as the Redwood or the Bristle Cone, estimated two to three thousand years old. Imagine holding a piece of time as early as BC. And history! Just like what the great English poet William Blake said, “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” You hold too, time and space. Pipe smoking leads you to hallucination.

I tell you what the substance is – the filler tobacco - that rouses the olfactory more than grandma's pie? It must come from a combination of selected tobacco varieties, cured with the best liqueur, and hermetically sealed to greet the user as fresh as it was blended. In Europe a blend is highly personalized, like wine. This is top secret of connoisseurs. For us here, I for one settled for two brands, American and European pipe tobacco in can, then the only available ones. Believe me the difference between the two is indistinguishable. It’s still Nicotiana tabacum, the same tobacco of Fidel Ramos, Deng Hsiao Ping, Fidel Castro, et al.

More about the art of pipe smoking. I lit my pipe with a special lighter whose flame goes downward into the bowl, and witnessed in the process of huff-and puff a Krakatau in the making. I peered into the glowing crater. Then I would savor the maiden smoke as fresh as morning air, blowing it in a series of “O’s” which takes skill to perfect it. You don’t inhale, unlike cigarette. The smoke runs through the oral to the nasal cavity and out through the nostril, gently fuming a cloud of smoke that surrounds the face, with your eyes half close in dreamy relaxation. It was really thrilling, exhilarating. What on a Sunday morning with brewed black coffee and newspaper and elevated feet?. Ah, and ahs….

Some high-chin and easy-chair years passed. I was in my middle thirties, still a bachelor. I wondered if pipe smoking attracted women of my liking. Or did I drive them to safe distance? On the mirror I didn’t change, not a bit American or European. Not even with sparse moustache which I jokingly tell my barber it is insured like that of Clark Gable. My lips were a little deformed now, and being right handed the pipe tended to settle rightward, with some teeth bearing the weight giving up. My lips lost their natural curve and color, and my teeth permanently stained no toothpaste would dare clean it in advertisement. My fingers could be mistaken for pellagra. If only they had the Midas touch!

I reeked tobacco. People avoided me, but how did I know, if I couldn’t even smell myself? It’s true. Smokers are immune to the smell of tobacco, and it is stale odor – breath, sweat, clothes, books, bed, and the like - so whom would they trust to tell them so? And my skin became dull and dry, and episodes of feeling down became frequent – so with refilling and caressing my pipe. In short I was already addicted to the nicotine and the pipe is now only secondary to it.

Nicotine is a poison, a very strong one. The extract of one stick of cigarette when directly injected into the blood stream will immediately kill the person. So why don’t we die with packs and packs of cigarette or can after can of mixed tobacco?

Doctors tell us that it’s not the nicotine per se that kills, it’s tar its carrier and medium of a dozen other poisonous substances. The tar deposits into the alveoli, the countless air sacs in the lungs, constricts blood vessels, and stains teeth and clothes. The alkaloids pile up in the kidneys and liver, and restrict natural elimination of other toxins. Elevated heart and pulse rate is our body’s coping mechanism, but like a car running uphill it loses steam fast and soon and conks out. Eyesight blurs, sense of taste deadens, so with sensation to touch, pain and pleasure. Alertness slows down, sex urge decreases and staying power shortens.

And it is not the tobacco plant itself that's the enemy; it is how it is grown. The plant picks up the arsenic dusted or sprayed, the lead and mercury in contaminated soil, so with cadmium from batteries today. Systemic pesticides that kill insects, nematodes and mites ensconced in the plant body, unreached by ordinary spraying, persist as residue of high dosage.

By the way, there’s something in the tobacco that changed biology on the concept of what realy makes athing living?. It is the tobacco mosaic virus, Marmor tabaci. The rod shaped virus infects tobacco on the field just by rubbing or mere touch of a diseased to healthy plants. And it infects as well all members of the tobacco family - Solanaceae , to which Irish potato, pepper, eggplant, tomato belong. The virus remains domant in as long as twenty years in the cigarette or filler.  And when you touch any of the host plants, it resurrects into virulence. Luckily, scientists assures us the virus has no effect on humans.

But with millions all over the world dying from smoking and its many complications, I believe the virus has mutated - even if biologically it is not considered a true organism. Mutation is still governed by error in DNA replication. And the virus basically has the DNA structure like all other things considered as living.

Really there’s nothing good about smoking, contrary to advertisements. I wonder how one can go a mile for a Camel when he is already exhausted at the start. Didn’t the cowboy in Marlboro retire too soon? Salem doesn’t make a beautiful landscape. Fortune isn’t something one expects. Fighter did not make us in our time as brave as Buccaneer.

Take the economic side. Our DOH says the government spends every year some P235 billion a year to treat illnesses caused or related to smoking like heart diseases, stroke, emphysema and lung cancer. And what does the government get in return from the tobacco industry? Only P23 billion, a measly 10 percent of the cost. PDI’s editorial The Puff that Kills, June 1, 2011, reported smoking kills 10 Filipinos every hour, or 243 a day. That’s 87,600 a year – and that’s a conservative estimate. Here is a case of an “old” goose laying the golden eggs, not worth it.

One day I was diagnosed of ulcer in the mouth, a wound that doesn’t heal. If you can’t eat, imagine the rapid decline in body weight and the various ailments you fall to. My clothes became oversized. I likened myself to a POW in a concentration camp in WWII.

“If you don’t stop smoking, you will die,” my doctor warned. “And soon!” he admonished.

Period. My pipes became museum pieces. A beautiful girl came. We got married, and have three children. We are now living happily.

Smoking changed my life – when I stopped it completely. ~ 

Harvesting Rainwater: The Art and Practice

Dr Abe V Rotor 

 

A bountiful harvest of rainwater cuts down water bill; it is environment-friendly and 
a source of enjoyment.  At home, Lagro QC.

1. Join downspouts together to maximize harvest of rainwater in one place.
2. Keep roof, gutter and downspout regularly cleaned and declogged of any debris.   
3. Avoid using red lead paint, use epoxy paint instead, to avoid lead contaminant.  
4. Filter rainwater with fine screen or cloth before transferring to container.
5. Plastic containers are convenient but they serve only as temporary storage.
6. Wide mouth containers may cause accident. They are not designed as bath tubs.
7. Use water within five days, otherwise it breeds mosquitoes and other vermin. 
8. Clean and expose containers under the sun for an hour or two to disinfect. 
9. Invert and be ready for the next rain to come. Store only clean rainwater.      
10. Final storage is ideally a garden pond. It is multipurpose: fish culture, water for cleaning, watering and for use in case of fire. 

A garden pond adds aesthetic beauty to the place, adds coolness and tranquility, cum a gentle sound of a fountain and running stream.Garden Pond at home in Lagro, QC. Take Nature Home mural painting by the author.

 
Catfish and pako fish raised in a garden pond.

The Mysterious World of the Pagoda Bagworm Cryptothelea heckmeyeri Hubn.

Dr Abe V Rotor

    

                            

Pagoda bagworm, Crypothelea hekmeyeri Heyl., in pseudo colony 

on duhat leaf; below, enlarged side view of the pagoda-shaped insect. 

Sheepishly she peeps from under a pagoda she built;

Like the turtle she hides, creeps ‘til finally ceases to eat.

A Venus de Milo she emerges, sans wings she must wait,

Love scent in the air she urges a winged groom her mate.

She lays her eggs in the tent, broods them ‘til they hatch,

With heart’s content; leaves and dies after the dispatch.

To the Great Maker, life’s full of sacrifice and obligation;

Mother keeps young and home, the species’ bastion.

- AV Rotor, Bagworm

Light in the Woods, 1995

My pastime reading under a spreading duhat tree standing at the backyard of our old house was disturbed one summer. This favorite shady spot almost disappeared as the tree my father planted before I was born completely shed its leaves. Our yard turned into a litter of leaves. Our tree appeared lifeless.

Summer is when this tree is a deep green canopy, loaded with flowers and luscious, sweet fruits, and laughing children, their tongues and hands bearing the stain of its black berries.

The culprit cannot be the drought spurred by El Nino, I thought. Duhat is highly tolerant to prolonged dry spell, because its tap roots can reach deep seated ground water.

Even before I discovered the culprit - a shy insect protected by a pagoda-like bag - my children had already set up a field laboratory in their a tent, complete with basic research tools, and books of Karganilla, Doyle and Attenborough. For days our backyard became a workshop with the touch of Scotland Yard, Mt Makiling and Jules Verne.

My children called the insect living pagoda because of the semblance of its house with the Chinese temple, and because of its turtle-like habit of retreating into its bag. Leo, our youngest fondly called it Ipi, contracted from “insect na parang pagong at pagodang intsik”.

Ipi belongs to the least known family of insects, Psychidae, which in French means mysterious. Yet its relatives, the moth and the butterfly, are perhaps the most popular and expressive members of the insect world.

Curious about the unique bag and how it was built by such a lowly insect, Matt and Chris Ann worked as research partners. They entered their data in a field notebook as follows:

1. Base diameter - 2 cm

2. Height of bag - 2 cm

3. No. of shingles on the bag - 20

4. Size ratio of shingles from base to tip – 10:1

5. Basic design – Overlap-spiral

We examined the specimen in detail with a hand lens and found that the bag has several outstanding features. My children continued their data entry, as follows:

1. Water-resistant (shingle roof principle)

2. Stress-resistant (pyramid principle)

3. Good ventilation (radiator principle)

4. Light yet strong (fibrous structure)

5. Camouflage efficient (mimicry and color blending)

6. Structural foundation - None

The pagoda bag has no structural foundation, I explained. It is carried from place to place by a sturdy insect which is a caterpillar, larva of a moth. Beneath its pagoda tent, it gnaws the leaf on the fleshy portion, prying off the epidermal layer to become circular shingles. Using its saliva, it cements the new shingles to enlarge its bag, then moves to a fresh leaf and repeats the whole operation. As

the larva grows, the shingle it cuts gets bigger,

This is a very rare case where construction starts at the tip and culminates at the base, noted my wife. Remember that the structure is supposed to be upside down because Ipi feeds from the underside of the leaf, I said. “An upside pagoda,” our children chorused.

As Ipi grows, the shingles progressively increase in size and number, thus the bag assumes the shape of a storied pagoda. Thus there are small

Pagodas and larger ones, and varied intermediate sizes, depending on the age of the caterpillar which continuously feeds for almost the whole summer during which it molts five times.

If there are no longer new shingles added to the bag it is presumed that the insect had stopped growing. It then prepares to pupate and permanently attaches its bag on a branch or twig, and there inside it goes into slumber. The attached bag appears like thorn as if it were a part of the tree, and indeed a clever camouflage on the part of the insect. Here suddenly is a parasite becoming a symbiont, arming the host tree with false thorns!

My children's curiosity seemed endless. I explained that like all living things, bagworms have self-preserving mechanisms. They must move away from the food leaf before it falls off. They must secure themselves properly as they tide up with their pupal stage. After a week later they metamorphose into adults. Here on the twigs and branches they escape potential predators. Here too, the next generation of newly hatched larvae will wait for new shoots on which they feed.

Matt picked one bag after another to find out what stage the insect is undergoing. I recalled my research on Cryptothelea fuscescens Heyl, a relative of C. heckmeyeri, the pagoda species. Chris Ann took down notes

1. Specimen 1 - Bag is less than 1 cm in diameter, caterpillar in third instar (molting), voracious feeder.

2. Specimen 2 - Bag large, construction complete, insect in fifth or sixth instar, morphological parts highly distinct, head and thorax thick, three pairs of powerful legs.

3. Specimen 3 - Insect in pupal stage, expected to emerge in one week, chrysalis (skin) full, dark and shiny. Feeding had completely stopped.

4. Specimen 4 - flag empty, opening clear, chrysalis empty.

5. Specimen 5 - Bag contains eggs laid on cottony mass, chrysalis empty.

The last specimen is intriguing. Where is the insect? Why did it abandon its lifelong home? A puzzle was painted on the face of our young Leo. So I explained.

Let us trace the life history of Ipi and its kind. Both male and female bagworms mature into moths. The winged male upon emerging from his bag is soon attracted by love scent emitted by a waiting female moth still ensconced in her bag. The scent is an attractant scientists call pheromone. Then in the stillness of summer night, her Romeo comes knocking. Without leaving her bag she receives him at an opening at the tip of the pagoda bag. A long honeymoon follows, but signaling an ephemeral life of the couple.

The fertilized female lay her eggs inside the bag, seals it with her saliva, then wiggles out to the outside world but only to fall to the ground - and die, because Nature did not provide her wings!

“Poor little thing,” muttered Cecille apparently in defense of the female species. “Nature did it for a reason,” I countered, “otherwise we would not have bagworms today.” The wingless condition of the female bagworm is the key to the survival of the species.

The sun had set, the litter of leaves had been cleaned up. And the silhouette of our leafless duhat tree against the reddening sky painted gloom on our subject. As dusk set in, I noticed nocturnal insects circling the veranda lamp. A moth paused, then passed over our heads and disappeared into a tree. “Bye, bye,", cried Leo Carlo.

Summer was short, the rains came early and our duhat tree developed robust foliage. Cicadas chirped at the upper branches and an early May beetle hang peacefully gnawing on young a leaf. I was reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when a gust of wind brought down a dozen tiny bagworms hanging on their own invisible spinnerets. My children were aroused from their reading of The Living Planet.

We had unveiled the mystery of the pagoda bagworm, but above anything else, we found love and appreciation on the wonders of Nature and the unity of life itself. ~~

Another species of bagworm (Crypthothela fuscescens Heylerts),  Family Psychidae. Photos taken at Angels' Hills, Tagaytay. The larva builds a bag of dried twig of the same diameter and length and attaches on the host plant until it reaches maturity.  The spent bag simply remains hanging. Lower photo shows an exposed larva purposely for study.

Phosphorescent Caterpillars

Dr Abe V Rotor

Caterpillars eating the leaves of ilang-ilang (Cananga odorata), at home near La Mesa watershed. 

They came - an army of hungry glowing worms,
on a sunset on a tall ilang-ilang tree;
there they hang like lanterns or neon far away,
and in crepuscular light there I could see 
a familiar tree traced by its essence in the air,
and now by the phosphorescence from this tree -
Christmas ahead and beyond yet here at hand,
by the glow of these worms reminds of Thee;
through nature's ways to guard the frail and lowly
through the secret of ephemeral beauty. ~   

Nature's Recyclers

Dr Abe V Rotor

Foliose lichen grows and breaks down the lignin of wood.
Parks and Wildlife Nature Center, QC

Moss builds soil from rock, an example of biological weathering.
Calaruega Retreat Center, Alfonso, Cavite

Termites eat wood with the aid of protozoa that live in
their stomach, an ideal example of symbiosis.

Termite mound covers a tree stump. Parks and Wildlife
Nature Center, Quezon City.

Mushrooms grow on plant residues, and convert them into
humus which fertilizes the crop. Antipolo, Rizal

Shelf mushrooms grow on dead wood, eventually converting
it into soil that piles up on the forest floor. Mt. Makiling, Laguna

Rot fungi blanket the dead limb of Ficus tree.

UST Manila.

A host of soil insects, principally crickets and grubs, was
responsible in toppling this tree. Caliraya Lake, Laguna.
Rhizobium bacteria convert atmospheric Nitrogen into nitrate
for the use of plants. Note tubercles in lower photo where the
beneficial bacteria reside.

Florence Nightingale - The Lady with a Lamp

Dr Abe V Rotor

Light a Candle

In the dark look at the sky and the stars

They’re living gems, a thousand eyes;

They soothe the soul, heal wounds into scars –

They come to mingle with fireflies.

Short is life; man is but a living dust,

But many great things come to pass.

Someday you shall learn from the sages,

Those who live through the ages.

Not for glory, they fill the emptiness;

Go light a candle in gladness.

Fireflies and stars in the night are one,

Like flowers that bear the sun.

Who is Florence Nightingale? She is one of the most famous women of the world. She is the founder of the nursing profession

Her first patient was a dog. And this is the story.

One day when she was a girl she happened to pass by a wounded sheep-dog on the roadside.  The shepherd told her that his dog met an accident and broke a leg. The wound was so bad that the dog would have to be killed since this was the custom in those days.

She did not delay; she made splints and bandaged the wound, and not for long the dog was running about again. The shepherd was very thankful to Florence, and when she became famous he would tell people that her first patient had been his dog, Cap.

In 1854 war broke in Crimea in the southern part of Russia. It was fought between Russia on one side and Turkey, helped by Britain and France, on the other. Florence was then 34 years old, and had convinced her rich parents to let her become a nurse.

The conditions prevailing in the Crimean War were getting worse. There were no hospitals, or if there were, they were poorly managed. There were few doctors and nurses were more of housekeepers of hospitals. It is not like the hospitals we know today. There were as many wounded soldiers dying due to lack of proper medical attention, as there were in the battlefield, a condition the British soldiers were experiencing.

On receiving this news the Minister of War in England wrote a letter to Florence requesting her to organize a team of nurses to go to Crimea, which is more than a thousand miles away, and would take weeks to reach through poor roads and rough seas.

She accepted the challenge and immediately set forth with 38 women volunteers, most were devoted nurses from religious hospitals. They braved the stormy sea, and when they were on the way, the Battle of Balaclava was being fought. This is the famous battle in British history known as The Charge of the Light Brigade.

This is how a survivor described the battle.

“Because of the mistake about what they were supposed to do, these six hundred men galloped along a valley more than a mile long, with Russian cannon shooting at them from all sides. Many of them were killed and wounded, but they never stopped until they had ridden right up to the cannon and captured them.”

The wounded soldiers from the Battle of Balaclava were among the first patients of Florence and her volunteers.

The life of nurses was very hard in those days. They attended to many household and kitchen works. There was very little time to rest. What made the condition worse was because women in those days were not equally treated with men. There was discrimination, especially by the doctors who were all males.

But Florence persevered, so with the remaining volunteers and new nurses she trained. The hospitals became very clean and orderly. She established a system of management. There were enough supplies. Gardens were cultivated to supply the hospitals with fresh fruits and vegetables. There were fewer patients dying than before and they were recovering much faster.

Florence would be holding a lamp in the middle of the night, or into the wee hours in the morning, just to check the conditions of the patients. This scene became the symbol of the modern nursing profession.

Here in our country we have many battles to be fought. But these battles are not those in Crimea many years back. The enemy is different yet the objective is the same – the welfare of the people. We need fighters against poverty, disease and hopelessness. We need fighters who give themselves unselfishly, voluntarily without fear.

We have leaders in the Philippines in the like of Florence Nightingale. One of them is Dr. Fe del Mundo, a medical doctor who founded the hospitals for children. These hospitals are among the best managed government hospitals in the Philippines today. Because of these hospitals thousands and thousands of children have been saved. Many more patients were given proper medical attention in the last fifty years or so. Many doctors and nurses have been trained to follow the example set by Dr. Del Mundo.

People who have apparently lost hope find the lamp in the middle of the night burning bright. Florence Nightingale and Fe del Mundo are making their rounds. ~