James Harp obituary

 

 

 
James Harp

James Robert Harp passed away at Cathedral Village in Philadelphia on October 1, 2014 with his wife and family at his side. He was 81.

Dr. Harp was born on January 8, 1933 in Pikeville, Kentucky, the son of George Bramlette Harp and Nancy Elliot Harp. He graduated from the Pikeville Academy in a class of 12 and went on to attend Duke University. His studies at Duke were interrupted by his Navy service as a medical corpsman in the U.S. and Japan from 1951 to 1955. Following his military service he returned to Duke where he completed medical school and residency training remaining for a year

on the anesthesia faculty. In 1956 he married Gail Mazza of Pelham, NY.

For two years he worked with Gail’s father, also an anesthesiologist, in West Palm Beach Florida. Then he returned to academia at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. He moved on to the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. From

1975 - 1987 he was chairman of the Anesthesia Department at Temple University and from 1987 -1991, head of the Anesthesia Department at Pennsylvania Hospital.

Dr. Harp was noted for his extensive collaborative research in the United Kingdom, Sweden and the U.S. on the relationship of anesthesia to the flow of oxygen and blood to the brain.

At the age of 58, Dr. Harp changed fields and began a residency in the Temple University Department of Psychiatry followed by a Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson Medical Center. Following this he

worked as a child psychiatrist in New Zealand for two years, the Community Council in West Philadelphia and at

Devereaux in Malvern.

Jim had a great love of music and a voracious appetite for all forms of learning. He played classical guitar, was an accomplished astronomer, an avid fisherman and studied Spanish, French, computer science, and physics among other

topics.

Jim is survived by Gail, his wife of 58 years, his two daughters Ruth and Hilary, his son James, his five granddaughters Jennifer, Julia, Susan, Beverly and Erica, his grandson Justin and his great-grandsons Jacob and David. He is also

survived by his sister Nancy. His sister Mary Jeannette predeceased him.

A memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014 at Cathedral Village, Philadelphia. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Sierra Club or the Cathedral Village 35th Anniversary Fund.

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Obama is a factor in this race only because Senator McConnell and his billionaire buddies have dedicated an ungodly amount of money defaming the President from the moment he was elected. Within 3 months of the President's first inauguration, the phrase "Obama's war on coal" was plastered on practically every newspaper headline in the state. This was a part of Sen. McConnell's pledge to keep President Obama to just the one term. Not too surprisingly, McConnell failed in this effort.

But he has managed to make the President a pariah because mighty few of the state's newspapers who carried his headline proclaiming a "war on  coal" ever looked into the money being used to constantly smear Obama.  But the truth is, the President has done considerably more to help the state in his 6 years than McConnell has in 30.
 
There is the American Recovery and Reinvest Act (ARRA) that turned an untold amount of  money loose in this state. In Pikeville alone, there are two very large construction projects this money made possible: the vast additions to the Pikeville Medical Center got $40 million; and the ironically named Coal Building that now houses the University of Pikeville College of Osteopathic Medicine got $20 million. It got the name Coal Building, even though the coal industry never went a foot out of its way to help build it. And these projects are but the tip of the iceberg.

Meanwhile, twice McConnell, who voted against the ARRA, lead the effort against healthcare reform without once offering any alternatives; in 1994 and again in 2009. We can conclude that McConnell did this not because he has anything in particular against gov't sponsored healthcare, but to keep his billionaire buddies happy. After all, he's had the very best healthcare the federal gov't can provide for thirty years, and at no time has he protested or declined to take part in it.

And Sen. McConnell has voted against raising the minimum wage at every opportunity he had, while never missing a chance to vote for a raise for himself.

And the Senator has blocked many bills meant to help the veterans of the wars he supported, even the Iraq war, and we know that we were lied to, to get that $3-5 trillion travesty off the ground. But when he voted against a bill by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders meant to fund the Veterans Administration to the tune of some $21 billion, he said did so because there was no way to pay for it.

What he meant was, he wasn't about to raise taxes on those corporations that profited in the tens of billions of dollars from the Iraq war while the veterans he tried to deny benefits to, fought and died or were injured severely in that war.

McConnell seems to not really want anything from the power he seeks; he just seems to lust after it. And now he holds out the promise he can become the Senate Majority Leader if he's re-elected and the voters from across the nation buy the same bull he's been putting out his entire senatorial career and give the Grand Old Tea Party a majority in that chamber.

But let us remember the last time McConnell was a part of the  majority,  how he help usher in conditions that lead directly to the Great Recession by voting for every spurious bill presented by Bush43 that took the feds from a $200 billion plus surplus to a $1 trillion plus deficit.

With that in mind, I think the voters would be well-served if they realized how little McConnell has ever done for the state's citizens and how much he's done for his billionaire buddies and for himself.

letter to nicky

Hi-Ho, Steverino!

So, life here in EKY is still what it always was; slow and unexciting.  Well, that's not to say nothing good ever happens.  FXX, a Fox channel, of all things, just got finished with a 12-day Simpsons marathon, called the Every Simpsons ever made marathon. Of course, I didn't watch them all, but I watched the most of them.

Funny, that 12-day course was like a meal at a Chinese diner; an hour after it was over, I wanted to see more. Luckily, FXX is doing the whole thing over again in a block of programming every evening from 8-12.  It's good to have cable, sometimes. 

On another front, I finally got another dog.  It was on election day during the primary; I went down to vote and I saw what looked like a golden retriever hanging outside the polling place.  I asked and was told he was a stray.  So I took him home. 

It took a while, but I eventually got him to stay around; bribed him with dog treats, etc. Yeah, there were at least two or three times he decided to see what else was out there, and he disappeared for a week or so at a time, but he eventually decided this was as good as he was gonna get, and settled in.  I think he chose the "lowered expectations" angle on his doggie life. 

Because of the color of his coat, I decided to name him Rusty.  Then it occurred to me I've never had a dog named Fido.  So I decided to name him that. Still, it seemed that it was a little normal, so I chose the Justin Wilson spelling (Cajun, don'cha know?) of Phideaux. And there you have it, Rusty Phideaux.

Of course, the dog spent at least a few months at the local school, hangin' with those hoodlums.  As a result, he never learned to spell very well, and, of course, he can't spell his name. Therefore, I've decided to call him Bud.  He can't spell that, either, but at least he doesn't fret as long about his inability to write his name. 

Oh, who am I kiddin'?  He doesn't fret about anything. He does what dogs do; licks himself and barks at things that aren't there.  But he's a lot of fun, and he makes the old prison  here bearable, again.

Mom turned 91 this last March. She's still doin' pretty well, for her age. She's shows a little confusion, now and again, but so do I, but, hey, I'm rushin' headlong into my own dotage; 59 and totterin' closer to 60 every day.

I don't mind. I was pretty tired of tellin' everyone I was in my 50's and havin' them laugh  at me. Now, next year, I won't have to put up with that, anymore. From now own, when people find out how old I am, I'll get that pitying look, and when they talk to me, they talk really loudly, so I'll be sure to hear. That sounds exciting, let me tell you.

Oh, and this summer, just to prove I can still do it, I cut up a big ol' white oak tree that fell down during a storm near my house.  I counted the rings and I got close enough to 90 to make it a pretty old tree. 

I used a tree lopper to remove the smaller branches from the crown of the tree, then I used a bow saw and a brush saw to cut up the larger branches, and later, the main trunk of the tree.  As a result, I have a large load of firewood, but no  fireplace, so I've told my cousin he can have it.

I did get the benefit of the exercise it provided from the first week of June thru the first week of August.  I can tell it did me some good, because I can do my push-ups pretty easily, now. And I enjoyed the summer a lot because I had this choir to do.

Mind you, I still had to look after Mom, but that is the great thing  about the summer months; all that daylight. So, I went out after 8 in the evening, and worked and hour or two every night.

That's kind of what bothers me about this time of year; when the first of Sept. rolls around, the days suddenly get a lot shorter.  Now, I'm stayin' indoors and using my exercise bicycle and some exercises I've learned that are meant to keep you lean and mean. Hasn't worked yet, but who knows, one of these days, and everything could come together.

Here in the Bluegrass State, we have a great opportunity this Nov., a chance to  toss Mitch McConnell out on his can, and I feel certain  we'll take advantage of it.

I got to meet McConnell's opponent, who is currently the Secretary of State. Her name is Alison Lundergan Grimes. She is, in  the vernacular of the hot rodder, a gasser. You know, a car that is meant to race and is hard to beat.

Grimes is the father of a one-time powerful politician from the Lexington area who is a natural-born pol.  He passed his genes on to his daughter. She loves the game, and is very gifted at it. Spends hours pressing the flesh and never  seems to tire.

When I got to meet her, I shook her hands and told her "Some day, I want to be able to tell everyone I shook the hand of a soon-to-be U S Senator. She laughed, hugged my neck and said "From your lips to the voters' ears!"

We've reached the point in the election-past Labor Day-when the electorate begins to pay attention, and the race is still a dead heat. And McConnell hasn't been able to build a lead, despite the fact that the Kochs, et al, have been lavishing him with campaign dough. 

I really hope we have seen the last of him. I keep saying no one should feel sorry for him; he's married to a rich Chinese lady, and after he's tossed, he'll never have to come back to Ky again.  And I'm pretty sure the buttheads at Faux News will find room for him on their couch.

There's one ironic thing about this race: McConnell keeps trying to make it about the so-called war on  coal. Turns out, tho, his wife is a member of  the Board  of  Directors of Bloomberg Philanthropies, and they gave over $50 million  to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.  They've used that money to keep coal-fired power plants from being built.  Bottom line, McConnell's family has been waging a war on coal, too.

But enough about all that foolishness.  I do have the "Soopa Troopa", the Crown Vic Police Interceptor, to cruise in. Thing is huge, tho. Got around $3000 in  it. My sister bought it for me.  Got it from a state auction for $1800 and put another $1200 or so in it. Thing has everything you'd want, including 4-wheel disc brakes and 17 " tires; 235 17's to be exact. Baby's got big feet.

It still uses 87 octane gas, tho. But it holds a little more gas than  the Mazda B2300, 19 gallons in all. And the gas mileage is only a little lower than the truck, with the added benefits of a much easier-to-drive vehicle.

Anyway, that's about it from here. I  have an  idea I may have a book to publish one of these days. I'm gonna make my next project a book of short stories, to be tentatively called OJT, and it'll be about stupid stuff that happens to you at work.

Anyway, take care. Call anytime you want. I'm here almost all the time, so almost any time is good for me. All the best,

Rapid Roy, that stock car boy!