Getting Brushed Off 

 Dot was one of the nurses with whom I worked in the emergency department. She was an older woman who was extremely neat. Every hair had to be in place, her uniform was spotless, and her shoes were shined within an inch of their life. She always wore her nursing cap securely fastened to top of her dark curls.

            One of our emergency room doctors was her complete opposite. If you remember the television program, “The Odd Couple,” then you can understand what I am trying to explain.

His clothing was always rumpled and more often than not covered in dog hair. His gray hair was longer and unkempt. Sometimes he even sported a couple of day’s growth of whiskers.

            He had one big bug-a-boo. He hated when restroom doors were left ajar. He wouldn’t just close it, but he would slam any bathroom door that was open. You could tell when he made rounds, because somewhere on the floor a door would bang shut.

            One afternoon Dot was fastening her hat in the nurse’s restroom when the doctor entered the adjoining lounge. He poured his cup of coffee and turned to leave and saw the door was open. BANG, he slammed it shut. Turning on his heel, he took his cup of coffee and walked to the desk at the nursing station.

            A few seconds later Dot stormed out of the lounge. She was as hot as the doctor’s coffee. Her face was red and there was dirt and debris nestled in her hair, scattered on her hat, and across the shoulders of her crisp, white uniform.

            When the doctor slammed the door, the air pressure lifted up the ceiling tiles and dirt that had collected on the top side of the tiles rained down on her.

            She stood beside the physician till he sat his coffee down, then grabbed his coat sleeve and dragged him back to the lounge, shoving him into the bathroom and slamming the door. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! The noise resounded out to the desk area. She left the lounge and went into a patient’s restroom to brush off her uniform and to pick the dirt out of her hair.

            A few minutes later, the much chagrined doctor emerged from the lounge with a sheepish smile on his face. He was covered with large amounts of dirt and dust on his head and shoulders. Unfazed, he rolled his eyes, ran his hand through his hair, and brushed the dirt from his jacket.  He seemed rather amused about it all and picked up his coffee to take a sip.

In the Palm of My Hand

Easter’s almost upon us. Our church like so many others are preparing special worship services for Easter morning. Some churches have Sunrise Services, breakfast, then a regular service or Sunday school. Our church has a regular Easter Sunday service and in lieu of Sunday school, we have a cantata and drama presentation.

Usually the church is decorated with flowers that line the altar rail. The aroma of hyacinths and Easter lilies fill the sanctuary while tulips, daisies, and hydrangeas mingle their varied blossoms into a tapestry of vivid colors.

The front of the auditorium is being readied with props for the drama. A cardboard cutout replica of the borrowed garden tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea fills one side of the platform. Wednesday evening, I said to our Pastor, “Isn’t the tomb to be a garden tomb?”

When he answered, “Yes,” I said, “It looks bare. Would you like a palm tree to place at one side?” He answered in the affirmative. I promised to create one from cardboard stock I keep in my basement. I have the large cartons that protected my sofa, my chair in delivery, and from the supplies used to remodel my upstairs bathroom.

Wednesday evening after returning from church, I searched the web for photos of date palms from gardens of the Middle East. Doing a quick sketch, I went to the basement and chose pieces of cardboard I would use. Gathering supplies and several cans of spray paint I readied the cardboard, applying a light spray of greens and brown for background colors, then set them aside to dry.

Thursday morning I chose the craft-paints from my horde and began to detail the palm fronds from three colors to vary each frond in color and shape. I’d thought of adding bunches of brown dates, but the fronds filled the cardboard piece. Dates would have looked too busy. Sometimes adding too much detail is as bad as not enough, especially for stage props. While the palm fronds dried, I used a thick permanent marker to simulate the rough trunk of the tree.

I don’t have a truck or van to transport my large creations, so I designed the tree in three pieces. Two pieces formed an adjustable trunk and the third piece was the palm fronds. If you’d like to see the tree, our Easter Sunday service is at 11 a.m. April 21st at the Mt. Zion Community Church, 159 Kreinbrook Hill Rd. Acme PA 15610. You’re welcome to visit.

Feeling Good

On one of my Facebook posts, I asked my friends to pray for a close friend of mine. I have known her all of her life and she has known me most of mine. Her parents and my parents went to the same church. She was born during that time, so I have known her since her birth. Our friendship has grown closer over the intervening years and she is one of my best friends. Because of multiple health problems caused by several and various accidents, she needs to have a service dog for balance and I have become a sometime travel partner and sometime chauffeur.

Last Saturday she developed a severe episode of vertigo and spent much of Saturday night in a local hospital. One automobile accident caused head injuries that gave her a compromising concussion. The force of the rollover impaired much of her normal life. The amount of trauma she received from the accident was like a football player being concussed four or five times in a few minute time span. Periods of vertigo are only one of the residual problems that remained.

After consulting with her primary care physician, an appointment was made with a therapist that deals with the realignment of the crystals in the inner ear. She needed someone to drive her home after the treatment. I was available and took her to the appointment.

When the crystals of the inner ear become misaligned, tinnitus or ringing in the ear or extreme dizziness and vertigo can and will often occur. I’ve had similar, but lesser bouts of vertigo since my fall in 2015 that caused 2 bleeds in my head. Once you’ve felt these incidents of disequilibrium that happen without warning, dealing with heights or driving can be intensely unnerving and frightening.

A local clinic was able to treat her today. We went to see the therapist who manipulated her with the Epley maneuver. The maneuver consists of turning the client’s head, then placing them on their back. The therapist then rolls the client from one side to the other, repeating the motion a few times as needed until relief is obtained. Afterwards, the client must limit head turning, bending down, several and other body positions. Because of this I became my friend’s chauffeur.

I had several Dairy Queen gift cards from my birthday party and decided to treat her so she could relax when she got home and wouldn’t have to prepare a meal and worry about making a restricted move. It’s something one good friend does for another.

Two Gals and a Guy

Several of my best friends are ladies. Some are fellow writers and some are just long time friends. Saturday two ladies that I occasionally pal around with went to PNC Park for the Pirate baseball game. The Cincinnati Red Sox were playing the Pirates. The day was warm and sunny; great weather to be entrenched in those narrow blue stadium seats to watch the game. As usual, we arrived early to avoid as much of the traffic as we could, traveling into Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from the Donegal area. The traffic was light until the expected moderate traffic congestion that appears on the approach to the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. The tunnel is a bottleneck that funnels so many ingresses from the east into Pittsburgh.

I’m now wearing a 30 day holter monitor to evaluate my irregular heart beat. I brought the doctor’s order for it, because my friend has a pain stimulator and she’s not permitted to pass through the electronic scan at PNC Park’s entrance. I thought the same might be true for my monitor. We entered from the gate that avoided the scan. The crew still searched our bags when we were admitted and quickly passed through.

We found our seats and settled in them behind the third base line. The sun filled the stadium and was quite warm. Pirate and Red Sox fans were equally distributed in the seats around us. As the innings progressed and the score see-sawed back and forth, the chatter two rows behind us began to grate on my nerves. Beer befuddled brains loosened their tongues. A constant argumentative babble flowed. Three young men seemed to ignore the game and they bickered as to who should have been entered into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Names were bandied about, argued, then reintroduced. Words became slurred and the pronunciation of the letter S soon became the letter Z.

About the seventh inning I’d had enough. I stood, turned around and said, “Will you guys shut up. People want to enjoy the game.” One smart mouth cupped his ear and said, “What did you say. I can’t hear you.” But they did settle slightly and talked a bit more quietly.

All in all, it was a nice outing; however blowing my top ruined my resolution. I’ve been saying for several years, “If I’m grumpy, I don’t leave home. No one wants to deal with a grumpy old man,” but I wasn’t grumpy when I left home, I was prodded into that frame of mind, slowly and unavoidably.

So Quickly

This year’s winter weather seemed to hang on like a nagging injury. One day types of weather felt nicer, then the next it almost incapacitated me. I am thankful I no longer have to force myself out to face the storms to go to work. The constant teasing of milder days interspaced with the cold snowy days became a fickle menu of days. Often I was even unable to decide the proper wardrobe to wear, especially if I planned to be gone most of the day. Decisions for dressing was no problem if I stayed at home, flannel jammy bottoms, long-sleeved shirt or sweatshirt hoodies, and thick wool socks.

Winter was unusual this year, because although there was some snow, it didn’t come in stormy drifting clusters, it came in dribs and drabs. I only used my snow blower once to clear my driveway. Usually a push broom and a snow shovel was all that was necessary.

What I found was the most wearing on me was the wind. When the temperatures dropped, it seemed to be an open invitation for the winds to hurtle down from our neighbors to the north. I have friends in Canada and don’t want to complain, but I wish you guys would shut the refrigerator door and not leave it open so often.

The time seemed to drag through those dark frigid winter months. It seemed like spring would never arrive. March, my birth month seemed to drag on interminably. The juxtaposition of cold and mild weather teased me to think old Man Winter had finally capitulated beating a hasty retreat, he would return with force, saying, “Got’cha.”

Robins returned very early this year. I heard them singing, but didn’t see a single one until several weeks later. My miniature daffodils managed to peek above the dried autumn leaves that had accumulated in my flowerbed and a few bright blue crocuses shyly popped up. The grass has started to turn green.

It seems like spring has finally arrived quickly lightening my winter blues and making me feel more lighthearted. Now If only I can get my winter weary body to cooperate, I will start my outside clean-up chores.

Playing Games

Many of my most pleasant memories go back to my youth when school, home chores, and playing games were at the center of my world. Outside games of hide n’ seek, kick the can, dodge ball, red Rover, football, and even skinny dipping after a long game of summer softball to cool off were my pastimes. I enjoyed snow ball fights and sledding in the winter, games of war by throwing green apples, or playing king of the mountain as the weather warmed. Swinging on ropes and falling into of hay in the barn or grabbing onto grapevines and arcing over the stream before letting go and dropping into the water.

Many games were played indoors, but some were designed by grandmothers to keep us busy when it was raining, like button, button, who’s got the button or the card games of solitaire or war. The games that made the most impression were the games we played by the light of an oil lamp, gathered around my grandmother Rebecca Miner’s large oak dining table. These game nights occurred when our electricity went out for extended periods.

My parent’s house needed electricity to keep the heat from the coal furnace pumped through the house. The furnace was warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, but Grandma had a wood-fired cooking stove and a coal furnace that kept her house toasty. Our family stayed with her because she had an electric water pump that was useless and needed people to carry water from the springhouse. It was mutually beneficial arrangement for both.

Old board games were pulled out to fill the day between hauling water or fetching wood for the stove. Pollyanna, Parcheesi, but my Grandma’s favorite game to play was dominoes. Muggins dominoes was most often her choice. Looking back, I believe it was a way for her to underhandedly keep our math skills sharp. Of course it was Grandma who kept score using a pencil stub and writing on the back of a used envelope, there would be no wasting a sheet of tablet paper.

I remember that she would start to cook one of her delicious meals. I believe she would use the aroma to draw our attention away from the games. I won’t say she cheated, but she used every advantage she could think of to win. Although she only had schooling through the 4th grade, she was a talented and intelligent woman. I’ve shared many stories of her creativeness many times.

Plots, Subplots, and Red Herrings

Work on my next Tommy Two Shoes Mystery has been going excruciatingly slow. I was somewhat burned out after completing my other four books. I took a hiatus from Tommy and resurrected two others that had been trapped in my files, thinking I couldn’t retrieve them. With the help from the Mt. Pleasant Library stall and my computer repair men I was able to open them to review and to revise.

I’m glad that I was forced to wait to publish them. They stank. I’ve learned so very much since then. After rewriting them, I think they are very good. The first rewrite is called The Walls Came Tumbling Down. It fictionally fills in the blanks of how Rahab the harlot from Jericho falls in love and marries a Jewish enemy. She is named in the lineage of David the King and Jesus.

The second book called Addie is a fictional novel set in the 1940s. It is local and the story line runs from Confluence, Pennsylvania to Mt. Pleasant. A woman who had never known what the word love meant met and began to care for an orphan. When he was taken away by the police, she was at a loss as to what to do.

I am now back to work on the next Tommy Two Shoes Mystery. This one may be a full length novel and not the series of mysteries, but it will have several mysteries wrapped into one cohesive mystery. There are several mysteries that fold into each other with overlapping plots and subplots. I may be including a few rabbit trails just to make things more interesting.

Tommy, Cora, Anna, little Johnny, and many of the previous characters will be revisiting Tommy as well as several new people and “movie stars.” Tommy is hired by a movie production company to be liaison between the city of Pittsburgh, its citizens, and the movie company to facilitate the shoots with minimal interruption to Pittsburgh. Vera and her café, Ed her husband, and they will be introducing a new character to the series…in about seven months.

The writing is slow for me, trying to integrate each detail to fit the story and align them with past facts. Who knows, the movie just may make a real killing.