S5 - E14.3 - Remembering Stephen Harrison: "Harrisonisms"

Surfing the MASH Tsunami

Manal Abdelmalek and Naim Alkhouri join co-hosts Jörn Schattenberg, Louise Campbell and Roger Green to rshare some of their favorite "Harrisonisms" - words, phrases and verbal memes associated with co-founder and former co-host Dr. Stephen Harrison.
Naim Alkhouri starts by stating two of his favorite Harrisonisms, two that SurfingMASH listeners know well: "is the juice worth the squeeze?" and "Keep It Simple, Stupid." He goes on to add one that never appeared on the podcast, "FAIL stands for First Attempt In Learning," which he used frequently in discussed failed clinical trials.
Manal Abdelmalek shares several phrases she describes as "words to live by." Two of these are "don't you don't take yourself too seriously " and "There will be failures. The worst ones possible are those that you don't grow and learn from." She discusses how human, approachable and down-to-earth Stephen was, and closes with a story about him ordering a hamburger and "American French Fries" at a gourmet restaurant in Paris because that was all he really wanted to eat.
Louise Campbell shared a Harrisonism she heard for the first time at Stephen's funeral about the difference between wisdom and knowledge: "Wisdom was knowing that a tomato was a fruit, and knowledge was knowing not to put it in a fruit salad." She goes on to comment on the joy he took in living a life of service.
Finally, Roger adds two favorites of his own: "the liver is the canary in the coal mine," and that when Roger heard Stephen ask whether the juice was worth the squeeze, he always followed it with "is the view worth the climb?" Roger goes on to tell a story about Stephen's older brother, Ken, responding personally to every social media post-mortem to Stephen he could find because it is what Stephen would have done, and Ken's comment about Stephen's basic humility and dedicating his accomplishments to "God's glory."
Finally, Naim tells about story about Stephen's interest in wine and Naim's in shopping and how they merged in a single vignette about Stephen and his daughter Anna Lauren in Paris.