Do Gooders

Have you ever rooted for the bad guy on television or in the movies? Have you ever read a story and hoped to find out that the evil criminal, enemy, or spy in the plot will win and somehow come out ahead without punishment? Have you ever read a newspaper and praised the person who abuses an animal, a child, or a spouse and thought “Good job?” If you ever have felt lie cheering for the villain, you may need to reevaluate your life.

In this time of concern for the illness called the corona virus, I see posts from people who have stripped shelves bare from many of the most essential products needed for safety and life. I know in our past we haven’t had toilet paper, disposable diapers, baby formula, and have managed to get along quite well. But in a generation where these things are everyday items on which they rely, it is almost criminal to remove them and to cause a panic, which in turn created more frenzied buying and hoarding of other products. Just take a chill pill. Sit back and relax. The less we rush into fearful patterns, the sooner thing will return to normal. The media feeds this pandemonium by sharing the most lurid details. Instead of reporting the facts, they seem to exaggerate situations for ratings.

What almost always becomes shoved aside is the people who stand firm in the midst of a crisis; the people who see their neighbors in a difficult situation and give assistance. Have we taken the time to check on the elderly people in their communities who are often forgotten by the world? Are we grateful people who thank the veteran or those still in the military and help to keep our nation great and free?

I hear of small stories that make a large impact. I read a story of a sickly mom with several small children who had to sit the children down and explain why they couldn’t find some items they needed. She didn’t explain the greed of others, but how God would provide for them. She said one of her kids was a worrier and was still concerned.

The next day I saw a post from the same mom thanking an anonymous “angel” that left a bag of food and toilet paper on their front porch. Examples of do gooders do exist, we just need to keep our eyes open and maybe if we keep our hearts open, we can become do gooders too.

Fear or Victory

Whether the fear and induced panic over the corona virus is real or a hyped media and political concern; there is one who is greater than it all, God the Father. God created the earth and all that is in it. Nothing happens that He has not foreseen. Mankind has the freedom of choice and often wanders away for the wonderful plans He has for their lives. I try to share my thoughts of mankind’s attempts to overthrow God and replace something in His place, I’m ridiculed.

I am concerned to see how quickly freedom loving Americans have allowed the governmental agencies to tell us where we can go, when we can go, and what we can do. It is disheartening to see how readily we pass the reins for our freedom to others. Can this be a trial run for a Communist inroad, for a take-over, or a path for the one word government predicted in the Bible for the last days?

Once a nation built on the foundation of Biblical tenets and God given rights has now become Christian in name only. With our nation promoting and praising the sins that God destroyed other nations for committing, how long will God withhold His punishment? How close to the end times have we moved?”

When I point out that each and every media outlet commentator shares the exact words and phrases as they foist what they have been told that “truth” is and try to convince you that what they’ve said is true. What I ask is, “Who is writing the script that each commentator spews out, an echo of each other? Who is the voice behind them that wants to lead the public?

Recently, these commentators have used Wuhan and China to describe the outbreak of the corona virus. Over and over in their reports day and night those names were used, but as soon as our President Donald Trump says China or Wuhan, they turned on him calling him racist or a xenophobe for using the very same words. They berate him for doing nothing and when he closes immigration from some foreign countries, again he’s racist or xenophobic.

His attempts to prevent undocumented, non-inoculated immigrants to enter the United States by creating a barrier, he was again chastised with the same names. It’s easy for them to change their attacks because the American public is gullible and easily distracted from one day to the next. The leading of the commentators cause waves of support for their often false representation of world views and world happenings.

We as a nation need a revival and a return to God while He still withholds His judgment.

Doctors Aren’t God

A man in his mid seventies was admitted to our intensive care unit at Frick Hospital, Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. He was admitted multiple times in the past for his diabetes, CHF, and kidney failure. This time he was admitted with sepsis. Because of his other problems the physician’s aggressive treatment didn’t seem to be making headway. He wasn’t responding to the medications and treatments and was placed on a ventilator in an attempt to gain time for the treatments to take hold.

He had five adult children. Each one was very high strung and emotional. Naturally they were worried about their father and asked the doctor about his chances for getting well. The doctor said, “I don’t think he will pull through this time. He’s very ill.”

There were a few tears, but knowing the family, it was reasonable. One of the daughters pressed, “How long, doctor?”

The doctor replied, “I don’t know. It could be two days or it could be two weeks.”

The next day their father arrested and could not be revived. Once the code was over and the family was allowed into the unit to see their father, one daughter threw herself on her father’s bed and shrieked, “You promised me two weeks! You promised me two weeks!”

That started the rest of the family gesticulating wildly and weeping. One of the sons started to rip off his shirt before leaving the hospital. The others left behind were screaming for their father to “Wake up!”

At that time with a doctor’s order we could get Valium pills to medicate grieving family members to dull the intensity of the blow. The doctor could fill out a form and we fetched the medication from the pharmacy. We filled glasses of water and handed the doctor the pills. He moved among the mourners passing out the water and pills like a priest dispensing the sacraments of wine and wafers. Some left to go home, a few stayed for awhile until their emotions drained and the Valium took effect.

Through the grapevine I heard one son was so emotionally distraught that at home, he picked up a shovel and smashed out the windows of his car. In my thirty-six years of nursing, this was the most bizarre outburst of grief that I’d ever seen.

Grandparents

How many of us can say that they could live like their grandparents? How many of us could do without our cell phones, our computers, or our televisions. Who wants to return to snail mail? Who could or would want to give up using our microwaves, our refrigerators, or our freezers. Anyone want to wash their clothes by hand and hang them to dry in the basement or outside on ropes in inclement weather?

Our grandparents’ wagons, coaches, and horseback riding slowly gave way to traveling in trains, trolleys, trucks, and cars. Flying was unheard of and left for something that only the birds did. Travel then took days or months, not just minutes or hours.

Food was canned, dehydrated, or eaten fresh from the garden. Beans were washed and snapped. Tomatoes were peeled and chopped or made into juice. Cornhusks were shucked, cleaned, and cut from the cob. All the vegetables were then cold packed in quart mason jars, Cheeses and butter was made at home. The churns were arm powered and burdensome. The potatoes were dug and harvested to be stored in the cold cellar with carrots, apples, beets, cabbages, and with the onions that were braided into ropes and hung from the rafters.

The farm was the butcher shop. Almost every rural household had chickens, a cow or a pig in the back yard. Many city dwellers did as well. Their milk and eggs were close at hand. The food scraps would be fed to the animals that would in turn become food for the families. Butchered meats were pickled, canned, smoked, or wrapped and hung to cure. Harvesting and butchering events became times for families to gather and share the labor.

One convenience I am glad has evolved from my grandparents is the indoor toilet. The need to go outside in all types of inclement weather to the privy has lost its quaintness. The second use for the old catalogues has long ago lost its allure. I’m glad that it’s become just a painful memory. May the supply of toilet tissue always be available.

Taking a bath was a once in awhile event with occasional localized ablutions as necessary. Heating the water and facing a frigid room when emerging wet was nothing to induce more frequent bathing. Bath water wasn’t dumped between each family member. The cleanest to the dirtiest made use of the same water, each time the water lost heat and became more tainted.

Oil lamps, gas lighting, or candles illuminated homes. Wood or coal furnaces and fireplaces heated homes.  Insulation was practically nonexistent. Frequent trips to stoke the furnace interrupted sleep otherwise the family woke to a cold house. Anyone lamenting the “good old days?”

Spreading the Seed

Thursday I tried to get my real ID, traveling to Somerset, Pennsylvania to the Department of Transportation Photo Center. It seems that this driver’s license renewal is always less congested and less busy than the ones in Uniontown or Greensburg. Even though I’m retired, I don’t like waiting in lines. I was sure that I had all of the information that was required, but when I got there I couldn’t find my social security card. I was sure that I had it, but kept overlooking it. I had the card’s stub, but it wasn’t acceptable. Then I became flustered and couldn’t find the original. When I got back home, I discovered that the original card was tucked inside the fold of the stub. DUH!

Friday I drove to the Uniontown licensing center fully armed with all of my paperwork. I won’t say that going there was a mistake, but waiting to be processed at that facility was about three times longer than sufering the rejection in Somerset.

While I was in Uniontown, I stopped at the Uniontown Mall to check out an antique store suggested by a friend. It was similar to the old Red & White store antique center near Ligonier, but the Uniontown Mall shop was much cleaner. The friend who suggested that I visit the antique mall was the same person responsible for initiating a blind date between me and my wife Cindy.

Friday evening I helped to unload the equipment and the Scripture that needed to be assembled Saturday morning. It is just a small part of the Seedline ministry, an organization dedicated to printing the Gospel and full Bibles in a number of languages. The John and Romans Scripture we were to assemble were printed in Portuguese and was part of a shipment to Mozambique, Africa.

Fifty-four volunteers of all ages gathered around twelve tables. In an assembly-line fashion, Pages of Scripture were separated and placed on three tables where the volunteers would stuff the pages into covers folded at other tables of workers. The assembled pieces of literature were passed along to the people operating the banks of staplers to attach covers and Scripture.

The final step involved the trimmer. This one ton machine trims the edges off ten booklets at once. There is one person who feeds the machine, one that causes the blades to drop to lop off the uneven edges, and another person who collects and boxes the finished Scriptures.

In less than four hours, our group had compiled 10, 558 copies of John and Romans in Portuguese. We set a record for our church with the number of volunteers and the number of assembled booklets completed.

For Better or Worse

An elderly man was given a prep for a colonoscopy. His bowels needed to be empty. The prep was started on the afternoon shift having only limited results, but things changed quite dramatically for the night shift. The old man rang out but before we could respond, his bowels had already emptied. A huge surprise awaited us when we pulled back the top sheet and blanket.

The escaping smell was atrocious. And I have never seen another sight like the one that awaited us. This frail man was lying in the middle of an expansive pool of butterscotch colored bowel movement. The pool wasn’t Olympic in size, but it was quite deep. It covered the entire bed surface from the middle of the man’s back and puddled along both sides of his chest and thighs to forme a lake between his legs. The depth of the feces reached half way up both sides of his abdomen and thighs. We looked at each other in utter disbelief. How could one thin man hold so much feces inside and how could we clean him without getting the mess all over ourselves and on the floor?

We finally rolled him to one side of the bed and allowing the pudding-like consistency of bowel movement to flow into the depression where he had been laying, then by folding the bed pads and sheets over the mess, we could temporarily cover and trap the bowel movement inside. We covered the mess with fresh sheets and clean bed pads. It was useless to try to clean him until we removed the entire mess from the bed. Only when it was removed could we think of beginning to clean the man.

Lining up several garbage cans against the bedside, we pulled the soiled sheets to the edge of the bed and allowed the bowel movement and the blue pads to slide into the waste baskets. Each can was lined with several layers of plastic bags to handle the amount of weight from the excrement. After rolling the man several times and several changes of disposable bed pads we could finally clean the mattress. The worst of the mess was now removed and we could tackle cleaning the man who was placed on more of the dry disposable pads. It wasn’t long until he was clean, smelling fresh, and settled in for the night.

I can’t imagine what the housekeepers thought when they collected the heavy garbage bags in the morning or what the laundry thought, but I know that some of the nurses who helped to clean the man said that they would never eat butterscotch pudding again. Me, it didn’t matter. I never liked butterscotch.

Shine On

Yesterday, I decided to have a day to myself and visit a spot that I used to hit once or twice a year, especially around Christmastime to gift shop for my wife. I hadn’t visited the place in about two or three years. It used to be a Red & White store on Route 30, just west of Ligonier. After the grocery store closed it became an antique flea market. It was a wonderful place to stroll through and take in all of the items from the past. Anything and everything graced the shelves. It was a marvelous building to wander through as I tried to decide if the item that caught my interest was something that I wanted, needed, or could afford.

I climbed into my car and dreamed of exploring the store and browsing through the accumulated oddities. The trip through the drizzle did little to dampen my anticipation. When I got to the location, the entire building was missing. It had been torn down. My heart fell. I turned around and drove back to Ligonier to satisfy another craving. I ate lunch at Ruthies, a small diner to the east of Ligonier on Route 30. I wasn’t disappointed. The food was great.

Back home, I decided to rest and allow my food to digest. Feet up, I snapped on the television. Moonshiners popped up. It was a session I hadn’t seen before and watched it to the end. It did bring to memory of an incident from Connellsville Senior High School. For the next day in chemistry lab, my lab partner and I were to do a distillation project. I knew I had elderberry juice stored in a quart Mason jar for nearly a week and thought it would make a proper distillation liquid. Sure enough, the jar was still there smelling a bit yeasty. Perfect. I smuggled it into school and then into the classroom.

After setting up the Bunsen burner and glass tubing for the distillery, I eased the lid off the jar and unobtrusively poured the juice into the glass “pot,” fired up the Bunsen burner, and waited. Controlling the heat was the most difficult. The temperature fluctuated, but soon we had a distillate dripping from the coil and collecting in another beaker. Because we were unsure of the “purity” of the distillate, we decided to distill it again. The second time, we controlled the heat much better.

My partner said, “Do you think we should taste it?” But before I could answer, our instructor said, “I’ll take that, boys.” So I don’t know whether we achieved liquor, what proof it was, or if even it was palatable or not.