Round Eyed in Surprise

Making rounds as nursing supervisor, I was often asked to look at photographs of weddings, vacations, new babies, children, and grandchildren. I was able to share events of their families through their own eyes and it was nice to be able to see just a bit of their lives away from a work setting.

One incident stands out as the most vivid and shocking photograph I can recall seeing. A nurse asked me to look at her vacation pictures. She’d gone on a cruise spending several days on a Caribbean island. She invited me to look at her photographs, I felt obligated, because I always tried to make time with any staff member to do a quick review. It was a way for me to connect with them and with the things important to them.

Her photographs were beautiful sharing sand, sea, trees, and flowers. I was casually flipping through the pictures until I saw what seemed to be a picture of a man on his stomach on the beach, but I could see bare breasts. The person was raised up from the sand on elbows with breasts dangling inches from the sand. They were completely exposed. The person had wide buttocks that were squeezed into a pair of “Daisy Duke” cut off jeans.

I was about to ask who this person was, when I bit my tongue as I recognized the face in the photo. It was the nurse who’d gone on vacation and who’d taken the pictures. The nurse had a square, manly face with large hips, legs, and thighs. She was the last person I expected to see in a pair of short cut-offs shorts and being bare breasted.

When I looked up, the other nurses in the unit were watching me. They saw my face going from puzzlement to a sudden recognition, then astonishment. They knew the picture that was hidden in the pictures and what photograph I’d just seen. They were just waiting to see my reaction.

I am still puzzled why a person would keep a picture like that in with her other photos or why would she allow me and her co-workers to see it? She wasn’t afraid to show me her photographs, but I was afraid I’d never be able look at another set of her pictures without fear and trepidation.

One of the nurses later said to me, “I knew exactly when you saw that picture and exactly when you recognized who it was in the photograph. Your face reddened and you shook your head.”

 

 

A Familiar Ring

When my wife-to-be, Cindy Morrison and I started to date I gave her my high school ring. Of course it was too large and she bought a metal band that fit inside to make the ring smaller for her hand. Our relationship grew and we talked about rings occasionally. Somewhere she’d read that an opal was the original engagement ring, not a diamond. I looked for an opal ring for a few months. Many looked so plain. I didn’t like them, so I kept looking. I finally found one I liked. The opal was on raised prongs with two small dark blue sapphires on each side. The sapphires seemed to make the colors of the opal sparkle.

When we went to a local baseball game and she passed my school ring to me, asking that I make the metal inside band smaller, wearing it, made it loose. I wanted to give her the opal ring, but the time didn’t seem right. I stuck my school ring on my pinkie and didn’t say anything else. When I didn’t return the ring, Cindy thought I was going to dump her, especially when I didn’t hand the ring back when she asked for it. In my car after the game, I asked, “Did you want this?” holding up my class ring. She said “Yes” with tears in her voice. Then I said, “Or would you rather have this?” and handed her the small box with the opal ring nestled inside. Shortly after that we went shopping for wedding bands. The salesgirl said I should be a hand model, but I think she was just trying to make a sale.

After we married, Cindy’s pre-eclampsia caused her hands to swell. She couldn’t wear her wedding bands and she said with her swollen belly and no ring, she felt ashamed. We went shopping for an inexpensive wedding band to make her feel comfortable.

Cindy read opals were a fragile stone. (That happens when a guy marries a gal who can read.) She was afraid to wear it, necessitating the purchase of a diamond. I made plans to surprise her at Christmas. Cindy was a snooper, only when the gift was wrapped. She’d shake, poke, and feel packages to figure out what was inside. I’d wrap gifts to thwart her. The diamond ring was in a velvet lined Lucite box. Tucking the box inside a Pringles can, I wrapped it twisting both ends and tying it with ribbon. As soon as it was wrapped, Cindy began shaking and loosened the ring. It rattled like the bee-bee of a cheap skill game. She tossed it back under the tree and was the last thing she opened. Her eyes flew open and silently mouthed, “Is it real?”

 

Vacation Bible Busy

Today is the last day of our Vacation Bible Time. Our Pastor decided with all of the confusion with schooling during the 2020 and 2021 year classes of home schooling, mixed days of being in the classrooms or classrooms at home, with masks or no masks. Many of the parents whose kids were home and were to complete their assignments from an online session hated it and found it more difficult than being in a classroom setting. I know of one kid who has to go to summer school because she refused to do her assignments.

Friday will be the last day of VBT and I am so thankful. This week has had something to do for each day. Monday I had cardiac rehab, then working the kitchen for Vacation Bible Time. Cleaning, cooking and serving. Meatball sandwiches, chips, or pretzels made the menu. Each day we have had an average of 21 kids and 12 to 16 adult leaders. The kitchen isn’t like an army mess hall, but for two people it kept us stepping.

Tuesday was another VBT and another lunch. Meat and cheese hoagies, chips, cookies, and finger Jell-O. Cold drinks were always available.

Wednesday, cardiac rehab, kitchen duty and Wednesday evening prayer services. Wednesday’s menu was grilled hot dogs, baked French fries, cookies, and finger Jell-o.

Thursday’s menu was chicken patty sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, cookies and the kid’s favorite, finger Jell-o. As soon as I cleaned up by wiping tables and countertops, I made a bee line to my urologist for my follow-up examination from the prostate laser procedure. I was taking my granddaughter home after VBT. She sat in the waiting area while I was examined. We stopped at a grocery store to buy bananas for my breakfast and grandpa bought a red pop and an orange Dreamsicle for each of us. I thought that I didn’t have anything planned for Thursday and how quickly things change.

So far Friday has only kitchen duty chores scheduled, but that is enough. Friday’s menu is pizza bagels and apple sauce. No biggie’’’Right? We will be using plain bagels that will need sliced, sauced, cheesed, and topped with pepperoni before we bake them in the oven. When we serve, we will have to be careful that no little reaching fingers are burned as well as offering salads and apple sauce. Prayers are requested PLEASE.

 

Mismatched

The craze today is to wear mismatched socks. Many times the socks will have patterns and colors that clash. I have friends living in North Carolina. Their sons seem to relish opportunities to display odd combinations of fabric footwear. This wasn’t the thrust of my thoughts. I was thinking about more accidental pairings.

One incident occurred while I was a student at Penn State. A couple of roommates were an odd couple. One often slept late while the other was an early riser. The early riser often dressed in the dark. This was a time when the dress boots were in style and had zippers up one side. He owned a pair of black boots and another in brown.  With my title, you can imagine what happened. Later in his room he  was still wearing the unmatched shoes he said, “I was sitting in class when I noticed my shoes, but there was nothing I could do.”

It was lunchtime and we said, “Let’s go to lunch.” He got up and started to leave the room. We asked, “Aren’t you going to change shoes?” He glanced down at his boots and replied, “Nah, I’ve worn them this long, a little more time won’t hurt.”

The second occasion that came to mind was when my wife Cindy and I were dating. We were on the swing at her parent’s house. Sitting there, I was studying her and noticed something odd, so I asked, “Did you get that top at Gabe’s?”

Gabriel Brothers is a store that sold items that were overstock or second’s. Sometimes the flaws were extremely noticeable while other times the flaws were subtle.

When Cindy replied, “Yes” she started to look herself over to see what I’d noticed. I told her to look at the sleeves. Each sleeve was puffed, white, with designs of the same color, but the design of one sleeve was sea shells, a seahorse, a starfish, and kelp. On the other sleeve the design of a butterfly, leaves, and grass pattern. Both designs were the size of a fifty cent piece, placed and in exactly the same spots and hues. I never saw her wear that top again.

What caused me to think of mismatched things was an orange hat my wife bought while in Steamboat Springs, Colorado as a gift for me. She was proud that she’d found a souvenir for me at a great price. Soon after she gave it to me I knew why. It had been a folded and in a window display. The cap’s bill and front was faded from the sun. It is a treasured memory and reminds me of her each time I wear it.

Walk This Way

Have you ever watched how people walk? If you ever have the time, sit on a bench at the front of a store and actually label the gait of persons walking by you. I had the pleasure of waiting while a friend finished her purchases. Shopping at Wal-mart is always an adventure. They have an annoying habit of changing brands or changing display areas in their store. They aren’t quite as bad as the old Pechin’s grocery in Dunbar, Pennsylvania. Pechin’s might move an item all the way across the maze of aisles to another spot. Wal-mart hasn’t done that quite yet, but back to my story.

Besides Wal-mart shoppers coming to the store in various dress, or should I say undress, each person has a peculiar way of walking. Some folk’s step is a pause as they lift their foot to the next step, in a lilting sort of pace. Some rush in as though they are late for an appointment or are in a hurry to find an item and go home after a trying day at work. Older patrons’ gait might be a shuffle following in the wake of their shopping cart. Step, step, pause, step to search the shelves for their desired item; usually it is placed too high or too low for these elderly patrons to reach. They find a higher priced product has been conveniently placed so they must choose to ask for help to reach or crawl on the floor to grasp the item that they wanted.

Some people trudge into the store as if they would rather be anywhere but shopping. Tramping through the crowded aisles with a scowl on their face, they become easily agitated when another shopper blocks the entire aisle, totally oblivious of the traffic jam that their cart has made. There are those who roam the store, planning on milk and bread and have a check out bill of fifty dollars; the look on their face, priceless. Striding in, all business is a guy in greasy clothing. He heads to the automotive section and returns with a can of oil, a tool, or lubricant. There is no delay, work waits at home.

Then there are those who saunter into the store covered in tattoos, high end jeans and expensive boots. Nails done, hair dyed and coiffed looking just shy of a fashion plate. Leaving their buggy is piled high with things many laborers can’t afford. That doesn’t cause me consternation until they pay for it with food stamps.

 

Say What?

The owners of Monsour Hospital were brothers. One of them was admitted with chronic back problems. His private room was beside a room with a loud confused patient who called out frequently. The moaning and yelling continued through the evening. When the night shift started, the loud vocalizations must have annoyed the doctor, because he came out of his room, took a gurney from storage, and pushed it into the noisy man’s room, then dragged the confused man onto the cart. They disappeared into an elevator. We were in a quandary. Minutes later, we got a telephone call, “one of our patients was in the middle of the main lobby on a stretcher.” His identification band said he was ours. He'd been pushed to the first floor and abandoned by the doctor. When the doctor came back to the floor, he requested medication for his back pain, then disappeared into his room. We didn’t know what to do. So we called the nursing supervisor for guidance and she reassigned the confused man to another floor.
The emergency department received a call saying we were to expect a woman being brought in by car. The family thought she might have had a stroke. I was told to wait at the emergency entrance with a wheelchair. She was to be a direct admission and I was to deliver her immediately to her room. I felt foolish standing outside waiting, but orders were orders. Ten minutes later a new powder blue convertible Cadillac whipped under the canopy. It stopped directly outside of the emergency room doors. On the side of the door white script denoted the owner’s initials. Before I could take the few steps to the car, the chauffeur jumped out of the driver’s seat and came around to open the passenger’s door. He pulled it open so I could slide the chair up to the gap. The muscular driver physically lifted the fragile-looking silver haired woman from the car seat and onto my wheelchair. The chauffeur said nothing as I whisked her away to her room. Registration came to her to admit her. There was no waiting for her in admissions. I chose not to be too inquisitive about the whole hush-hush affair when I saw as the chauffeur climbed out of the car was wearing a leather strap across one shoulder and a bulge under the opposite arm pit. I'd learned a long time ago not to question powers-that-be in administration or a large chauffeur with a bulge under his arm.