All the World's a Stage

 All the World’s a Stage

William Shakespeare said all the world was a stage and the people in it actors, but I think that some people would be considered real characters. Some of the folk who would arrive at the emergency department when I worked at Frick hospital were called “frequent flyers.” They were repeat visitors; some as drug seekers, some were actually sick, while others wanted to be the center of interest, and then there were those who were just lonely.

We had a married couple who didn’t quite fall into any of these categories but straddled several. They came very close to be frequent flyers. I think they came just because they could come to the hospital and not have to pay for it. We named them Prince Charles and Princess Dianna. Charles and Dianna were their real names.

The closest thing to them having a royal escort occurred when Charles arrived in an ambulance accompanied by medical attendants. Charles and Dianna carried Pennsylvania’s yellow public assistance gold card. You’ve heard the commercial, “It’s the gold card, don’t leave home without it” and this couple never did.

Before anybody complains about my comment I just want to say there are people who are unable to work due to a disability and SHOULD have assistance. But there are other people who are able bodied and intelligent who should NOT be eligible.

I feel that Charles was one of the latter. He was intelligent and if he can have sex he’s able bodied enough to find a job. At an earlier visit he told me in the triage area, ‘I was teaching the old lady how to play chess tonight before we came in.” He had to have some smarts to play chess, right.

So, let me get back to the story. Charles was brought in by ambulance. As he was moved onto our bed, I noticed that under him was one of the dirtiest, filthiest, stained sheets I’ve ever seen and he was completely naked.  The spots on the sheet were not the pattern. He explained that he and his wife were having sex when his “back went out.”

He was given x-rays, medicated, and discharged. We gave him a pair of pajama bottoms because he’d arrived “au naturale” and a patient gown to wear home. He was to bring them back. I doubt that he did. The pajamas probably doubled his wardrobe.

He and Dianna had hardly disappeared through the exit door when she rushed back into the emergency room calling, “Where’s my sheet? Where’s my sheet? I need to put it back on the bed when we get home.”

The nurses looked at each other thinking the same thought. “Who’d put that filthy thing back onto the bed?” We shrugged, gloved up, and dug through the dirty linen bag to find her sheet. We returned it stuffed inside of a plastic trash bag.

The Wakeup Call

 

 The Wakeup Call

My Dad Carl Beck always went to bed earlier than my Mom Sybil Miner Beck did. He had to get up so much earlier than she did, but Dad also liked to listen to the baseball game when the Pirates played. Often he would take his portable radio to the bedroom and listen to the game before he fell to sleep. When the game was over, he would turn the radio off and slip it beneath the bed and then go to sleep. One night he forgot to turn the radio off.

The following morning after the ballgame, Mom was wakened, scared by a male voice in the bedroom saying, “Good morning!” She sprung from the bed, thinking that someone was in the bedroom, but when she settled down, she found that Dad had either fallen asleep before the game was over or that he had not shut the radio off before he slid it under the bed.

This was a time when many radio stations didn’t broadcast all night long, but would sign off at midnight until the following morning at six a.m. Mom had gone to bed after the station had signed off for the night and hadn’t known the radio was still on, but she found out at six a.m. that morning.

One of my parent’s bedroom windows was at the front of the first floor of the house. It looked out onto the walkway that led to the front door. My brother heard Mom moving inside, The blinds were closed. The window was open with an adjustable sliding screen in place. He leaned close and yelled in the window, “Whoo-oo-oop!”

Mom had been in a stage of undress. She screamed and dropped to her knees, whipping off the bedspread to cover herself.

Mom was on one of her frugal kicks and had made just one hamburger for each of us. She had cheese slices, tomato, onion, and lettuce as fillers for the sandwiches and for our bellies. The meat plate was passed around and each of us took one. We each stacked the extras onto our burgers. All of us had started eating; even Mom had taken a bite of hers. It was then she saw the “extra” ground beef patty on the plate.

“Who didn’t get their burger?” she asked. It was then she realized that she was so intent on building her burger with all the extras, she had forgotten to add her hamburger patty to her sandwich.

Remembering Flowers

 Remembering flowers from my past, I think of my Grandmother Rebecca Rugg Miner. She loved flowers. In the summer she had a flowerbed of pansies, lilies of the valley, and the long green porch boxes filled with red geraniums. The pansies were her favorite. She said they reminded her of little boys with dirty faces. In the winter her inside windowsills were filled with cuttings from the geraniums. Their leaves had a spicy aroma when rubbed. At the end of her upstairs hall was a huge Christmas cactus with its green leaves and deep pink that blossoms cascaded down the sides of a stainless steel cream separator bowl.

I can’t really remember special flowers for my Grandmother Anna Nichols Kalp Beck, but she loved the huge oak tree in her side yard. She would often sit in a metal yard chair enjoying the shade.
My Mother Sybil Miner Beck loved her roses; often she had started them from cuttings. She would snip a rose stem, place it under a Mason jar, and cover it with straw for some time. She’d keep it covered, occasionally checking on its progress, until it took root and began to grow. She had several colors from a pale yellow to a bright crimson. I think her favorite was a parchment colored rose that had a large bloom.
My mother-in-law Retha Johnson Morrison always had bleeding heart baskets hanging on her front porch. I can remember sitting on the swing with Cindy Morrison Beck while we were courting and watching the humming birds visiting the baskets.
My wife Cindy’s favorite flowers were daisies. It was great for me in the summer. I’d often pick the wild daisies and make a bouquet with whatever other flowers were blooming at the time. The bouquet was there as a surprise for her when she came home after teaching. I won’t say I was cheap, but I will admit to being frugal.
My older Daughter Amanda Beck Yoder’s favorite is the calla lily. She had a large bouquet of them in her wedding. I bought a large framed picture of calla lilies as a wedding gift. It hangs on their living room wall.
My daughter-in-law Renee Largent Beck carried a wedding bouquet of wildflowers and daisies to honor my wife Cindy. Cindy died in March and their wedding was in August. Renee’s favorite flower is forget-me-nots.
My younger daughter Anna Beck Prinkey loves sunflowers. Sunflowers made up much of her wedding bouquet. The sunflowers were the usual color of gold with dark brown centers, but I don’t think it mattered what color they were. Now that there are so many variations available.

Peeps

 Peeps

After several decades of having Fred and Doretta Brown as neighbors I now have a much younger family living there with their daughter. They’ve planted several fruit trees and have made a garden. Slowly they’ve made changes to suit them. I used to mow Fred’s yard because I could and he had difficulty. He was hard of hearing and had hip replacement surgery. It cost me nothing but a little gas and some time. It was a relief for them I am sure. When the new family moved in, I mowed their yard too, knowing they would be busy with chores and settling in. It was neighborly thing to do.

Once they became settled, the husband said he was able to mow his yard for himself. We are good neighbors and have occasionally done neighborly things for each other. The wife occasionally will bake something and share and I’ll send some scraps for their chickens to eat. (I don’t bake.) I’ve fetched their young daughter’s toys or a ball that has escaped their yard. The wind in our neighborhood is often very strong.

The young daughter will wave at me when I walk up for the mail. She sometimes looks out the front picture window. This year for Easter I bought several packages of marshmallow peeps. My kids like them. Not so much for me. I thought it would be a surprise to tape a package of blue bunny marshmallow Peeps to the window for her to find. Her mom messaged me to ask if I had done the deed. I replied that I wanted to surprise her when she claimed her spot at the window.

I also bought Redstone candy chocolate crosses for my granddaughters. I gave them to the kids early because two of the three are away from home, one in Arizona with their other Grandparents and one is attending college in Florida.

We ate our Easter meal at my son Andrew’s place and this year I managed to roast the turkey without making turkey jerky. The turkey was well done but the meat hadn’t become dried out and crispy. I also managed a no-bake orange  Creamcicle pie. It was a nice time of eating and talking. I hope everybody had a nice Easter, celebrating Resurrection Day/

Scents and Sensibilities

 Scents and Sensibilities

While I was tidying up the house again, I saw something that has been there for quite some time. It just became another part of the ordinary things that make up my house. (For those in southwest Pennsylvania, I was doing some redding up.) In a basket in my downstairs powder room, there is a bisque scent ball. It’s almost the size of a tennis ball. Its flat bottom had a small plastic plug and the top sported several small holes like a salt or pepper shaker. It was a pomander ball that was made to hold perfumed body powder and slowly release the scent over many months much like the electric room fresheners of today. Its smooth white surface has a several roses of pale pink with stems and green leaves. It sports a shiny braided gold thread through two of the holes on the top. The cord allows it to be hung in a closet or in an unobtrusive corner of a room. The “Wedgewood” brand and “Made in England” is stamped in pale green print to form a semicircle on the base.

This inexpensive little piece of clay holds a precious memory for me. Either for our first or second Christmas together, I bought it for my wife Cindy. Neither of us had much money. She’d just graduated from California State University and I was a recent Penn State graduate. We’d just bought an acre of land and set up housekeeping in a used mobile home. The land was undeveloped and had to be prepared by scraping out a pad for the trailer and for the driveway. The trailer was towed from Casparis near Connellsville to our lot just outside of Normalville, Pennsylvania. We had to have the electric, telephone, and septic systems installed. Keeping ahead of the bills and paying the mortgage ate up much of our money.

I can’t recall whether I bought the ceramic ball from a mail order catalog or one of the party circuits selling knickknacks, but I thought it was a cute item. I even filled it with some of the bath powder Cindy used. It wasn’t a practical gift and that may be why it has lasted so long. I know Cindy stored it in her lingerie drawer for many years scenting her underclothing. Believe it o r not, the ball has still retained a soft scent from the powder dumped inside over forty years ago.

I was sorting through papers too and found a paystub from Frick Hospital 1977. My take home pay then was less than a nurse earns today in one day.

Ice Cold Swimming Hole

 Ice Cold Swimming Hole

When my brother Ken and I were in our preteen and early teen years we would walk with the neighbor boys an eighth of a mile to a deep spot in the waters of Poplar Run. It was a spot under the bridge between Normalville and Indian Head, Pennsylvania along Route 711. The waters that fed this stream emanated from underground springs and the melt off of the winter’s snow and ice. The creek for the most part, flowed through shaded wooded areas where sunlight only filtered through the leaves and branches of huge trees and laurel bushes that lined its banks. The swift flowing water stayed cold all year long.

Each year a basic dare progressed into an annual challenge, we would make the trek to get into the frigid water beneath the bridge before the end of April. We weren’t quite the Polar Bear club, but it wasn’t a sunny day on the beach either.

Beneath the bridge along one side of the stream was a sand and rock stretch of beach. Before we would make our first timorous exploration into the water we would build a fire. We already knew that the water would be cold. We gathered driftwood to keep the fire going as we swam. It would be the difference between salvation and hypothermia. It would be needed.

Under the bridge the stream made a turn where the current created the deep swimming hole. The deepest part of the hole was in the shade of the bridge, so there was no heating of the water on the trip from the melted snow to our pool.

Once the fire was built and going well, we stripped down to our white briefs and crept to the water’s edge. We knew what awaited us. There was always the test of toes, praying that a miracle would have happened and the water had been somehow transformed to become warm. We hoped against all hope that it wouldn’t be as cold as it invariably was.

Each of us had our own way of getting into the water to finally immerse ourselves in the icy flow. Some of eased in; toes, ankles, calves, mid thighs, and then the part that took your breath away: the family jewels. It was no use going slow any longer and we’d dive in. No use prolonging the agony. Others were more daring and took the plunge, popping out of the water with a savage scream that echoed from the high arched walls of the concrete bridge.

One thing that was the same for all of the swimmers after we had taken the plunge and the few strokes back to shore we raced for the fire to get warm. Huddled and shivering we crouched close to the red hot coals, squatting on our haunches and holding our quivering arms to our chest as we sought more body heat. We added more wood to dry ourselves and to try to get warm before hypothermia could set in.

Once we warmed a bit, we would open a sleeve of saltines and toast them one at a time on a forked stick by holding the cracker over the hot coals. Retrieving the plastic knife we had hidden, we would smear some of the oleo from the stick “butter” onto the toasted cracker and have a feast until the last crumb was devoured.

It was a time of male bravado and bonding. About this time, we were dry and warm. Climbing back into our clothes we would head for home. All through the summer we would return to swim. When the dog days of summer and its hot sweltering temperatures engulfed our world, the swimming hole would become an oasis and refuge with its cool, refreshing water and not the springtime place that tested our manhood.

The Name Game

 The Name Game

I can remember many years ago when my kids were much younger and my wife Cindy Morrison Beck was still alive, the kids would ask me; what can we get you for Christmas? I would tell them that I wanted the preprinted return labels: labels that came in a self-adhesive roll. Some brands of the labels had a wet and stick, while others had a peel and stick. But the one thing that all of the labels had was the name, street address, state, and zip code.

For some reason they never bought any labels for me. I don’t know why I detested taking the time to hand write my name and my address in the upper left-hand corner of envelopes, but I did. There were advertisements everywhere offering the preprinted return labels. Nearly every newspaper advertisement bundles offered them for sale. Many magazines ran an advertisement somewhere inside or the back cover wanting you to take advantage of a sale price to purchase them.

I’m a frugal guy. My kids have interpreted that word to mean cheap. My salary for two weeks as a nurse back then, is what a nurse now makes in a day. Times have certainly changed. Often it was a struggle to pay the mortgage on a house, the payments on a car, taxes, and utilities. My wife Cindy Morrison Beck taught at a private Christian school to pay for our kids’ tuition. It was my salary that kept a roof over our heads, food on the table, and shoes on our feet.

I was surprised that the bank recognized my signature when Cindy passed away. I was on night shift and Cindy often signed my name on my check to deposit it. Banks were often not open when my eyes were. She also wrote the checks to pay the bills. That was a new responsibility I had to carry when she passed away.

Suddenly every charity seeking donations began sending preprinted, self sticking name and address labels in their solicitation mail. Now I have all the name/address labels I need. Even if I live to be one hundred years old, I’ll never run out of labels and Heaven forbid if I ever change address. What will I do with the excess labels? The frugal part of me will not want to toss them out.