Mushroom Hunting

May, 2011

As a spine surgeon, Jim doesn’tusually operate on a patient until all other treatment modalities have been exhausted and the patient is still suffering extreme discomfort. Therefore, most of his patients come out of surgery feeling very much better than they did before surgery. It’s not at all uncommon for a patient to thank Jim for “giving me my life back!” And because so many patients are happy with their surgical results, he frequently gets small personal gifts from grateful patients. By far the most common gift he gets is a plateful of chocolate chip cookies. It’s not hard to figure out that he is a chocolate chip affectionado since he actually has one of his offices decorated in chocolate chip paraphernalia. And his annual chocolate chip cookie bakeoff is well known around the hospital. It’s a rare week that he doesn’t come home with someone’s version of his favorite cookie.

The second most common gift he gets is something Star War or Star Trek related. Going into a doctor’s office with a life sized Spock on the door and filled with everything from Star Wars collectible figures to a stuffed Yoda is an immediate give-away as to Jim’s extracurricular passions.

Other patients like to share their own specialties. He had a patient once who loved to make bread and arrived monthly with fresh baked loaves of his newest speciality. Another patient keeps Jim regularly supplied with homemade beef jerky. And another keeps us well stocked with home grown hot peppers.

But the best patient gift that Jim ever received was one that never made it home! Years ago a patient showed up at his office with a two pound sack of morel mushrooms that he had found, carefully soaked, and proudly presented to a surprised Jim. Jim, born and raised in Peoria, is not exactly a ‘big city’ person, but he’s definitely not ‘small town’ either. So he was clueless about the glories of wild mushrooms and had no appreciation for what a wonderful gift he was being given. Knowing Jim, I’m sure that the generous mushroom hunter had no idea of how taken aback Jim was at his unusual gift. I’m sure that he had no idea that Jim’s first thought was something along the lines of “Oh my God, I’m going to be poisoned!” And I’m sure that he had no idea that Jim was very happy to give away the mushrooms to his nurse and nurse practitioner, both small town girls, both well aware of what a magnificent gift it was.

I, also a small town girl, was horrified when Jim came home and told me about the mushrooms! I’m guessing that I shrieked! I may even have cried! Needless to say, to this day Jim has never again given away anything to his nurses without checking with me first. However, also needless to say, no patient has ever again given Jim morel mushrooms.

Several weeks ago Jim and I were having dinner with Leslie and Joe when the subject of mushrooms came up and I told them the story of the morel mushrooms. Joe, much more a city person than Jim, born and bred in the Chicago suburbs, was shocked at the idea of someone going out into the woods and picking mushrooms. “How do you know which ones aren’t poisonous?” he asked.

And I realized that in fact I had no idea. In actuality I know nothing about mushrooms. I just know a morel mushroom when I see it--and, sadly, I’ve not see one since I left for college! But growing up in a small town in Illinois, I went mushroom hunting every spring. Mushroom season was always short and usually better if we had a rainy spring. Mushrooms are cagy things, popping up in different places every year. Everyone is rural towns have their favorite spots, and no one likes to tell their mushroom secrets. My dad must have taught me what they look like when I was really small because I have no memory of ever wondering if what I found was poisonous or not. But I have grand memories of tromping around the woods near my uncle’s farm with my dad, searching around trees and tree stumps and occasionally finding a mushroom to throw in my bag. I have memories of my dad going mushroom hunting with friends and coming home with a bagful, proud smile on his face, the mighty provider bringing home our dinner. And I have wonderful memories of my mother soaking the mushrooms, then very lightly breading them and then frying them in butter. I have happy, happy memories of our family together, every spring, gathered around the table eating those smalltown delicacies. And I have absolutely no memory of ever worrying about being poisoned!

“What did they taste like?” my son in law asked me.

“Delicious...they were delicious,” I told him.

Fried morel mushrooms weren’t the only delicious things I remember from growing up. There were my grandmother’s homemade noodles and her homemade rolls, there was my Aunt Alta’s no flour chocolate cake.

Maybe it’s just as well that Jim didn’t bring home that bag of mushrooms. Maybe they wouldn’t have tasted as good as I remember. Maybe I’ll just remember how delicious everything was!