Excerpts from Wreckage

Thursday, June 15:

Pop's CT scan adventure

Early this morning I drove Pop to what used to be the front entrance of the Garland hospital, which turned out to be the wrong entrance, but we didn't know that until after I walked him inside and saw it was the Discharge area. Sat him down in a chair by the window, told him “I'll be back” in my best Arnold Schwarzenneger voice, trying to inspire confidence in both of us, and left to park the car.

I got lost. When I came back in through a side entrance, I couldn't find my way to Discharge; had to reverse direction, exit the building, and walk around to whateverthehell-side-except-thefrontside of the building it was now.

Pop's face brightened considerably when he saw me finally reappear. Knowing my proclivity for getting lost, he said, “I’ve been sitting here wondering what I’d do if you didn't come back for me.” Bless his heart.

By then we were almost late for his appointment--like they'd process him on time anyway, but I have this thing about not being late. Since it was a long-ish walk to Out-Patient Admitting, I asked for a wheelchair at the Discharge window--which really did make us late because we had to wait for the Candy Striper to bring it. I made Pop push me because I was worn out by then. No, no, I pushed him--doing wheelies all the way.

Of course, we still had to wait. Out-Patient got him processed, and gave us the paperwork. We followed a volunteer guide to Special Imaging. Its tiny waiting room was full, and I ran over a few toes before finding a place to park Pop. Still, we didn't have to wait too long before they called him back and ran him through the CT tube, which didn’t take long either. They wouldn’t let me go with him, but they returned him no worse for wear.

After detouring him to a restroom, we--notice I say “we”-- managed to find our way back to the door that actually opened onto the right parking lot. While I brought the car around, he sat outside and soaked up the Texas-heat after the hospital-cold.

Then again, he might have wanted to be a landmark for me.

Thursday, September 14:

Pop goes to the rodeo

Texas Instruments sponsors a Retirees Reunion every year. Pop enjoys attending the function, and John usually accompanies him as his guest. This time the theme was “Rodeo.”

They drove to the rodeo grounds in Mesquite early this morning. They listened to speeches by “some head mucky-mucks.” They ate lunch. They got a kick out of the monkey riding on a dog's back. They enjoyed seeing a famous bull rider ride a bull. Since Pop and John are two expert bull-flingers themselves, they probably bonded with the man.

They had fun. The End.

Shoot, how am I supposed to work with that?

Since they didn’t have any juicy stories I could pass on, I’ll just dredge up an old one instead: Once upon a time, a couple of years ago, I answered the phone to hear Pop’s irate, indignant and irritated voice telling me a sheriff's deputy had just come to his door and given him a ticket for littering. If he didn’t pay the eighty dollar fine, they’d arrest him and take him to jail.

“Did you litter, Pop?” I asked. He got quiet. Since he lived out in the country, he didn’t have trash pick-up service. Either he had to pay to use the city dump, or he’d use the dumpster at a nearby church--and yes, he sometimes threw trash bags out along a back road.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, “but there was other trash out there. No one saw me. How could they know it was me?”

“What was in the bag?”

“I don't know--garbage…some papers…”

“Papers with your name on them?”

More silence. Then he said, “Dang!” I tried, unsuccessfully, not to laugh.

“They got you dead to rights, Pop. There's no way you can talk your way out of this one.”

“Bye,” he said abruptly, but as he was hanging up, I could hear him grumbling to himself about the law threatening to put an old man in jail for littering.

He paid the fine, but he let the sheriff know what he thought about it, too. It’s a wonder he wasn’t thrown into jail anyway!

PAYPAL LINK

Thursday, December 14:

Pop gets out after being iced in

Most of the Dallas area had been shut down for three dreary days due to one of our rare Texas ice storms, but today--today the sun took center stage and sang a Roger Miller tune that do-wacka-do’d us right between the eyes.

Roller skating in buffalo herds or on slippery sidewalks was definitely out, but the ice had melted off the roads enough to make driving safe, so I called Pop.

“Want to get out for awhile?”

“You bet!” He dropped the phone. I swear I heard him laying rubber with the wheels of his walker. He was waiting for me on the front porch. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“I put on shoes.” He looked down, grimaced, and went back inside to change slippers for shoes.

First stop: the dentist. Pop’s temporary partial was still loose. Dr. B discovered one of the wire “hooks” had broken off--undoubtedly from metal fatigue when that tech had tried to adjust it before. No way to repair it. Oh well, he can still eat. He'll be OK until he gets his permanent partial in January.

From there we went to browse the dollar store where Pop found those rubber snakes a few months ago. He needed birdseed, and I put several bags in the cart. As we were getting ready to check out, he thought an ice cream bar would really hit the spot. Sounded good to me, too.

No stack of tables to sit on like before, so we were going to eat in the car. But as we left the store, Pop saw an iron park bench in front of the restaurant next door. He suggested we sit there.

He walked over to the bench. I put the birdseed in the trunk, grabbed my gloves from the front seat, and joined Pop. Now mind you, it’s December, the bench was in deep shade, and the wind blew briskly and steadily. The afternoon had gotten dismally cold.

But there we sat, shoulder-to-shoulder on a bottom-freezing iron bench, eating our ice cream bars, and enjoying every single bite.

Barbara Blanks

aka StFlossie