The Original Palm Pilot

When I was writing about ‘My Own Two Hands’ as one of my first blog entries and thinking about Mike’s steady, strong hands at work in the hospital, I also thought of the teasing he endured!

Family and friends would joke with Mike about having ‘stubby fingers’.  I think this was part of Dave’s tease-Mike-list.  I know Tom mentioned it when he talked about Mike's persistence and determination trying to palm a basketball, despite his physical (shall we say) limitations.  Mike would counter to Darren that Darren's fingers were so long, they must flap in the breeze…..  It was certainly a recurring theme!  So it should be clear that Mike’s fingers were not what you might wish for if you aspired to be a concert musician.  However, rather than focus on the length of his fingers, it should be noted that his huge meaty palm was used as the Original Palm Pilot.

When the Palm Pilot first came into circulation (should be called Palm Pilot-o-saurus now), it was a medical students dream come true.   You could input volumes of information, such as Harrison’s bible of Internal Medicine.  Mike resisted buying one at first, since his own palm provided copious space to jot down notes and reminders about his patients.  Rarely did he run out of space.  In that unlikely event, he might extend a note onto his equally meaty forearm.   Even once the Palm Pilot-o-saurus finally became extinct through great world events such as the iPhone… Mike would use his palm…. for more personal info, if not as important (e.g. ‘Cookes’ which meant: buy a pound of French-Italian coffee).

Though palming a basketball was tough with those short fingers, let the record show it was still possible on occasion!  (Matthew, I think Mike's smirk in this photo could be officially classified as 'cheek biting'- trying to look seriously cool but too goofy to quite achieve it...).