Gosh in Mpls

Standing left to right; Jimmy Devine, Bhakta Ed, Gaura Shakti

Arrived in Minneapolis no problems. My friend old college era Ed, who is at age 60 selling his chiropractic clinic, buying a camper, and hitting the road to tour Hare Krishna temples (at the suggestion of Ganapati Swami) picked me up at the airport.

We went to a house and hung out with some devotees. I got to see Jimmy Devine and Terri’s garden, and could only be envious of the lack of deer damage in their area. Jimmy lived for a few years in New Vrindaban in the 70s and comes back regularly for visits. They have adopted an ox named Sri at ISCOWP so visit  NVto see him.

Gaura Shakti and his wife were also there. Gaura lived in NV during the 70s and 80s before going to India for 6 years. He is still a regular visitor in NV, most recently the Festival of Inspiration.

I got updated on devotee doings in Minneapolis and the inevitable “remember when” stories abounded.

It was a connecting flight so I had two different seatmates. One was a Harley Davidson motorcycle representative who said sales were off in his business 50%. the other was a Vietnamese man from Chicago who was going to St. Cloud Mn to get married. He was hand carrying a special cake his fiance had requested, that could only be found at a Chinese bakery in Chicago.

At a restaurant in O’Hare airport, I struck up a conversation with a guy who turned out to be a professor at George Washington University in Washington, DC who works in the field of health care policy.

I got my points in about how the US should shift from an organ donation policy of explicit consent to where someone has to express a desire to donate organs to one of implicit consent, as is the policy in some European counties, where it is assumed you want to donate your organs and if you don’t want to you can opt out.

That and the idea that 70 % of the American health care dollar goes to treat chronic diseases that can be prevented through life style modification like heart disease, diabetes, and lung diseases caused by smoking and how the for profit model of health care we have now isn’t really health care it is disease management.

We need education so people don’t abuse themselves with poor diet, smoking and drinking, and lack of exercise.

We also talked about end of life issues so Muktakesa’s situation came up so despite my normal reticence to preach in person, Krishna crept into the conversation.

Anyway, today is another day, let’s see what happens.