Area Birders: I owe everyone an apology for my message about Ron Harrington's "Testostorone Tour 2005." Ron says it didn't happen. He is worried about my mental health. This concerns me because he was on the Tennessee governor's committee for mental health in Nashville. When Ron retired he was overseeing more than 1,200 mental health workers at 60 sites in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee while working with Frontier Health. Ron also worked with the criminally insane at the state correction facility in Marion. He was once the director of the Bristol Regional Menthal Health program. I am not bragging on Ron. I wouldn't do that. But, when an experienced psychologist and prominent mental health worker thinks you are losing it, you either need to go birding or get therapy. "Your ability to conjure up details from the figments of your imagination always amazes me. I don't recall any of what you described," psychologist Ron wrote to me. "All I remember is the drive to Lebanon for some down-home Chinese food cooked by South Koreans and Mexican natives. Maybe those "special" ingredients including "sang" stimulated your cerebral cortex and brought on visual and auditory hallucinations. Thank goodness the effects are temporary.......Looking forward to another episode real soon." Well. That is scary ! I called my local psychologist with the regional mental health and asked if they could help me. "Oh my goodness! Ron is having another psychotic bout with denial," he said. "Don't worrry, we'll call him in for therapy before you guys go birding again. We're sorry this happened. You know, Ron was not always around stable people." After I hung up, I thought a minute. Does that include me ? Oh, man. I am an unstable birder ? Birder shrink Don Holt set an appointment for me at the Bends of the Holston. Following a few hours of field therapy, Don delcared me stable. "You walk fine. You are steady on your feet. You look through the correct end of your binoculars," Holt said. "You are stable." "So that means my cerebral cortex is ok and I am not experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations ?" I said with relief. "Oh, I wouldn't go that far," he cautioned. "Maybe you should talk with Ron Harrington. He would know. Ron is an experienced psychologist. That's your best bet." I think I just need to go birding and not worry about therapy. I like stable birding. Don and I saw tow yesterday and both had several beautiful horses. There were even a few cowbirds feeding just outside. Let's go birding...... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST Bristol Birds Net Photo Gallery located at: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jwcoffeyy/album?.dir=/efd5 This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (423)764-****