First Sleep

First Sleep

First sleep was a term that was used commonly until late in the 19th century. It was a biphasic sleep pattern where people slept in two distinct separated by one or two hours of wakefulness known as the “watch.” People would sleep roughly from 9 p.m. until midnight, wake to read or work for a few hours, then sleep again until dawn.

First sleep began shortly after sunset. It was characterized by several hours of deep and restful sleep. The interval, “The Watch” was a period of time that was used to read, pray, talk, or tend to chores. It faded and finally disappeared from our vocabulary, our pattern of speech, and our lifestyle with the rise of electrical lighting, industrialization, and a push by society for a consolidated 8-hour period of sleep. In summer’s impressive heat, the night cooled and created a time where it became more tolerable to complete tasks and the person was strengthened and refreshed.

If there is a first sleep, it follows that there was a second sleep. That was the return to slumber-land until rising again in the morning. In the past the time to rise was just before dawn when animals needed fed, chores needed done, and breakfast needed to be cooked. It was a time of sleep that completed the cycle of rest.

What also popped into my head was a trip taken with 17 teens out West tenting. We drove by a city in Wyoming called Ten Sleep. It was named by the Crow nation referring to a 10-day mid-point travel between Big Horn Mountains and Fort Laramie,

Lately I have fallen into a first sleep pattern getting drowsy in the evening after a strenuous day of small chores and watching television. My allergies cause pressure to build behind my eyes making suggestions to my brain that I need an evening of napping. Recently I have succumbed to that siren’s song and fallen into bed for a few hours of slumber. The midnight hour will tease me into full wakefulness and I am compelled to wake, rise, read, write, and pray. For some reason I am not drawn to go downstairs to sit in my recliner to watch some late night program on the boob tube. I don’t need to be rubbed the wrong way by some Leftist comedian who thinks that he or she is funny. Their comments have become political parodies that hurl only barbed insults at anyone who opposes their singular view of reality.

So after an hour or so of putzing around, I decide to go back to bed and sleep for another five or six hours before rolling out of bed to face another day. 

Follow Up

 Follow Up

I forgot to mention from my llast post. I was docent st the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society this past Saturday and as I started my car to drive home, the “low tire pressure” light on my dashboard was iluminated. I Climbed back outsside and made a tour of my tires. None looked low and the light still glowed saying that one tire had 15 pounds pressure, I thought it might be a faulty sensor and drove home to use my handheld gage and add air if it was needed. I haave an electric pump and a bicycle manual pump. I tried to use the electric and couldn’t get it regulated then retrieved the hand pump. To my dismay, the hose had dried and was broken.

I placed a call to James Prinkey, my son-in-law who lives close and asked him for help. He’s a whizz with tools and if he was available he’d come over and rescue me. James came over and whipped a battery-powered pump from his tool box. While it was pumping, he made rounds checking my other three tires. All of them were good. As he checked them, I slid my hands ocer the surface of the low pressure tire, only tto find a thin, flat wire about two inches protruding from the tread. Even with my limited mechanical knowledge, I knew not to try to remoovee it. Similarly as a nurse I was taught not to pull an impaled object from a chest wound.

I carefully drove to the local NTB store to have “professionals”” pull the wire and replace itt with a plug. The technician was skillfully able to repair the hole and I was able to go on my way. They didn’t charge me anything, but was able to get tem to accept a small gratuity. I was very thankful that the technician was able to get me out of my dilemma.

The coincidence was astounding. The week before I went to NTB to replace my marine battery for my sump pump in my basement and hit a curb on my way into their facility. I’d bought that battery there and it was still under warrenty. However, NTB had stopped selling marine batteries. The curb had sliced the sidewall of my tire. I had to buy a new tire.There was no way I clould leave, so I had no choice but to buy a new one and have it mounted so I could leave.

Frustrating Friday

 Frustrating Friday

Friday morning wasn’t indicative of the rest of the day. I washed, hung clothes out, brought them in and folded I put them away Saturday. It’s rare I do both on the same day unless I feel the need. Since it’s only me in the house, I get lackadaisical at times. I knew I was to attend my youngest granddaughter Hannah Yoder’s high school performance of the musical “Frozen” later. Somewhere about noontime, things changed. I couldn’t find my cell phone and thus came the search-party safari. For several hours I retraced my steps. Outside, upstairs and downstairs, I retraced every step that I had ever made. I even executed several detours through spaces that I knew I knew I’d never traveled, “Going places where no man has gone before.” I became so frustrated that I finally gave up and defaulted to the old man reserve position. I showered and took a nap.

I heard my daughter Anna Prinkey come in the front door. She and I were going to the musical together. I had messaged her earlier that I had lost my phone. She dialed my phone number, but I keep it on vibrate so I am “running silent,” and the vibrations let me know that I got a message. While she was searching I got dressed to go to the musical.

She made the usual tour of my house and then decided to recheck my car. She tried dialing my cell again several times, listening for a vibrating sound. After several times, she heard a chattering on the rear floor behind the driver’s side. The phone had slipped from my pocket and her dialing vibrated from its hiding place in the seat.

The musical went well and was glad to get home to take my meds and climb into bed. I was tired from jogging up and down the stairs.

Saturday I had volunteered to be docent at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society. There are only three members who are willing to carry the workload. It is hard to keep up. The numbers of workers have decreased due to old age, death, and illnesses. More and more volunteers are harder and harder to find. Historical societies and other smaller agencies are pressed to stay open. The preservation of the past is essential. It’s essential to keep our history as a foundation for the future.

Saturday evening I met with several other men who gather to pray for a revival in ourselves, our church, and in our country. Mt. Zion Community Church at the top of Kreinbrook Road begins s week of revival services the week of April 27^th. Everyone is welcome to attend. Services start at 7 pm. Thursday is special. It’s visitor’s night with a dessert fellowship to follow. Pease come.

Drained Brain

 Drained Brain

Have you ever woken up and thought “I don’t wanna? I’m not hungry. I don’t wanna eat. I don’t wanna read my Bible and pray. I don’t really wanna go to take care of chores. I don’t wanna get out of bed.” The only reason you stir at all is nature calling and your bladder is full almost to overflowing then you stumble half awake into the bathroom. Now that you’re up, what are you gonna do?

That’s what I felt like this morning. I was have no appetite, especially for breakfast foods.

When I feel like this, what do I eat for breakfast? The thought of frying an egg makes me want to head back to bed, pull the covers over my head and hide, but I’ve already taken my morning meds and I have to eat something so my blood sugar doesn’t hit rock bottom. Sometimes I pull oped the refrigerator door and study the contents in the dim light of the 25 watt bulb that resides there. Then I must make the decision, will I eat leftovers so I don’t have to cook anything, but the mashed potatoes and two chicken drumsticks leftover that I see for some reason that menu doesn’t seem too appetizing today.

I managed to sort through my refrigerator to finally find and consume a container of yogurt. I decided it would be the least offensive to my indecision and queasy stomach. At last I am able to sit in front of my blank computer screen and try to wring out today’s post. This is it. I’m sorry if it’s not up to my usual dribble, but it is what I have left in me. Maybe I can think of something better for my next post. If not I may shuffle back down stairs to search for somethin else to eat. I know I have Rice Krispies, a couple of bananas, and milk. Anyone want to join me?

A Bit of History

 A Bit of History

President Abraham Lincoln was attending the Ford Theatre in Washington D. C. The date was April 14^th 1865; Good Friday. President Lincoln was relaxing with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. He was in high spirits as the terrible Civil War was coming to an end. They were in box seats above the stage watching the comedy, Our American Cousin when John Wilkes Booth sneaked into the box and shot President Lincoln behind the his left ear. Mrs. Lincoln cried out, “The President has been shot!”

Seated in the balcony about fifteen feet away from the Presidential box were several young Unon soldiers from the Thompson Battery. They carried President Lincoln’s unconscious body feet first from the theater across the street to a back bedroom of the boarding house owned by William and Anna Peterson and placed him on a back bedroom and placed him on a bed to await the doctor. Mr. Lincoln died the following morning.

Those four young soldiers were aged eighteen and early twenty year olds. An unusual coincidence was that all four of them were from the surrounding areas of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Who were these four young men and what happened to them?

Jabez Griffiths was from McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He died in 1898 from cancer.

William Samples, also hailed from McKeesport died in 1898 after a blast furnace exploded causing him an untold amount of agony until he blessedly passed away.

John Corey from North Versailles was a riverman who drowned in 1884 while working on a coal barge.

Jacob Soles also from North Versailles lost an eye in a coal mining accident before finally succumbing to cancer in 1936 at the age of 90.

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.