Faint Not

An unusual incident occurred in my days of student training at Penn State. I have kept it a secret for many years. It happened while in my obstetrics rotation. One of the doctors decided to do a saddle block on a young woman in labor. The other student nurse with me was in her early forties while I was twenty-three.

The doctor eased a long, thin metal tube inside the woman’s vaginal canal, until its end touched the tip of her cervix. Then he picked up a long needled syringe. The needle was at least ten inches long. The needle made the rasping, grating sound of metal on metal as it slid along the metal tube.

I noticed a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. The sound had been too much for the nurse standing beside me and caused her to faint. Fortunately she was standing between me and a nearby wall. As her knees began to buckle, I shifted all of my weight hardly moving at all, against her and pressed her tightly against the wall keeping her upright.

When students are in nurses’ training, there is little that is more embarrassing than for a student nurse to faint. It was a humiliation for a student to have “passed out.’ It’s not a black mark against your credentials in your training, but you can be certain you will be teased about it for a long, long time.

I turned my attention back to the procedure at hand and watched as the doctor completed the nerve block. He’d just removed the needle from the metal tube, when I felt a stirring of the dead weight on my shoulder. The wilted nursing student began to rouse. She shook her head, once, twice, then reclaimed her weight. As she straightened up, I leaned away from her and she stood back onto her feet.

A few seconds later, she leaned close to me and whispered into my ear, “Thank you.” I can’t remember her name, so your secret is still safe with me.

Me, A Normal Person?

I grew up halfway between Indian Head and Normalville, Pennsylvania, so I guess I’m only half normal, but I’ve lived a relatively normal life, one of three children of Carl and Sybil Beck. I was the oldest, then came my brother Ken, and finally my sister Kathy Basinger. My first home was a rental cottage in Mill Run. It was part of the Curtis Rugg farm and across the field from my aunt Violet and Uncle Charles Bottomly.

We moved when my dad, Carl bought a small house along Route 711. It had three rooms, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room that surrounded a small U shaped porch. There was half of a basement under the house, containing an old coal furnace, a hot water tank, and a coal bin. The house lacked an inside bathroom. We washed in the kitchen sink and used an outhouse until I was nearly five years old. Mom managed to squeeze a wringer washer and a double galvanized rinse tub. Later Dad ever so slowly expanded the house and basement while we lived there.

Dad’s first job after he married my mom Sybil was a coal miner. Most of the mines in this area were composed of narrow seams of coal that required the miners to work hunched over picking, shoveling, and loading carts.

Dad’s next job was at the Walworth factory in South Greensburg, Pennsylvania where they had a foundry to shape metal into pieces of valves. Once out of the foundry, they were sent to various sections of the factory to be milled, drilled, and assembled into the final product. Walworth made valves of steel and brass. The sizes ranged from thirty-six inch to2.5 inch valves. Each valve was pressure tested no matter whether they were wedge valves or ball and socket.

I worked there for a year after high school, before entering the United States Navy. That’s where I earned the money for my first car. I would love to still have it. It was a 1966 Galaxie 500 XL, burgundy with black vinyl top, black bucket seats, and a T bar shift. The engine had a 390 two barrel that could make the tires smoke. I only did it once or twice, because I was frugal and didn’t want to buy new tires. I sold this sweet vehicle to my brother when I flew off to boot camp. He promptly traded it for a pale yellow mustang. I’m still not sure I’ve forgiven him for that. So, is that normal?

Just Another Rainy Day

Saturday evening my good friend and travel partner and I went to PNC Park to see the Pittsburgh Pirates take on the Los Angeles Dodgers. On the way there we stopped at Denny’s Restaurant in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Sometimes we stop either on our way to evening games or on our return trip for the day games. We were fortunate enough to have a wonderful server, polite, cordial, and very astute to our needs. I didn’t see his name tag, so I can’t give him more than this for a shout out, but he seemed genuinely interested in us as his customers.

After was arrived at the park we found there was a severe weather delay. During the delay I was able to talk and make the acquaintance of several of the ballpark staff, including a police officer who was providing security on the field. As usual, I introduced myself and shared a business card. While we talked, I told him several of my books were about a homicide detective who’d retired from the Pittsburgh police force and that my character could only investigate mysteries. I shared business cards and chatted with some of the grounds crew as I waited.

I took a sign I’d made to the game addressing Jung Ho Kang, but because of the weather delay and restrictions, I couldn’t share the greeting with him. I did catch the eyes of an oriental couple who were apparently media personnel with cameras hanging around their necks. When they saw my sign, they smiled and shot several photographs of me. I was able to slip a business card to them. Who knows, I may be a famous person in South Korea someday.

Another pair of oriental spectators in the stands did the same. Then the rains came and drove the crowd to the relative safety under the cantilevered parts of the stadium. As some old country folk used to say, “It was a frog strangler for sure.” The rain came down in blinding sheets. We were fortunate that there was no lighting. However, the Buc’s bats were silent nearly all night and the Dodgers won the game 7 to 2. It was a damp and disappointing evening, but I was still able to find some enjoyment at the game.

The television weather channel says we are to have another week of rain. Think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?

Unsure

I’m unsure why my visit to plant flowers on the graves of my wife Cindy, my parents, her parents, and both my maternal and paternal grandparents affected me so much this year. As I drove through the Indian Creek Baptist Cemetery among the headstones, I noticed the hundreds of American flags that waved over the graves long before I arrived to the spot where I parked. Many of these veterans who rest here are names and faces that I knew. I felt a lump start in my throat as I unloaded my car.

The first site I addressed was my wife, Cindy’s. I wiped the dust and grass clippings off black marble tombstone. It brought back memories for me ordering it and designing the design and carvings. Cindy’s heritage was Scottish and I created the pattern for a Celtic cross intertwined with the blooms of the Scottish thistle. My name, her name, and our wedding date grace the surface of the stone. After watering the plants, I moved to her parents’ grave, Retha and Elmer Morrison to plant flowers there. Next, I walked to my grandparents’ marker, Ray and Rebecca Miner. I planted pansies and geraniums; my gram’s favorites.

I had to wander searching for my parents’ headstone. It was farther down among the tombstones in the cemetery. As I drew near to the area where I knew it was located, I saw the American flag that the American Legion placed there in honor of my father, Carl Beck. Tears filled my eyes and I stifled a sob as I stared at the names engraved in its gray surface, Edson C. Beck and Sybil J. Beck. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I hurried back to the spot I’d left the shovel, flowers, and water. After I was finished planting, I gathered my tools and drove to my grandparent Edson T. and Anna N. Beck’s burial plot in the Donegal Cemetery. It was easier to find, because of the funeral of my aunt Dorothy.

It was a beautiful day to complete the task, warm and sunny and soon chased away those unsure feelings of sadness.

Paved Over Garden

While employed at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, there was a small courtyard area. It was rectangular, approximately fourteen by twenty feet, a grassy garden area of flowers and beauty. It was tended by volunteers of the community and eventually claimed as the garden honoring their children that had passed away all too early. The “Children’s Garden,” was given the love and tenderness that the parents could no longer lavish on their child. Weeding, mowing, trimming, planting, adding pavers, markers of remembrance, and benches, they made it a quiet oasis for hospital staff, visitors, and where those parents could feel close to their children.

Its location was near the front entrance and adjacent to the outpatient surgery center and operating room. The quiet space of the garden was a great spot for people to relax and feel less stressed while a loved one was in surgery.

Thursday, I drove a friend into the hospital for a procedure. While I sat in the waiting area, I noticed that the garden was gone. The new management decided to relocate it, paving over it to expand the coffee shop. When I inquired, “was it gone?” I was informed it still existed but had been moved to the rear of the hospital. The garden was now out of sight and not easily accessible to visitors. It had been tucked away where it is mostly overlooked or forgotten. I’m sure the parents still lovingly care for the garden, but it is no longer the bright asset that it once was.

Another area that seems to have disappeared from the hospital is the chapel. The volunteer couldn’t answer whether it remained. All of the items of the old chapel were donated by local businesses and citizens. It seemed the Bible, brass cross, candlesticks, stained glass side panels, oak kneeler, and pews were no longer important. The chapel had been a quiet sanctuary and respite from the stress of the hospital for patients, visitors, and staff.

Instead, the management chose to build a grand, expansive entrance hall. The huge room is rarely used and has lost all of the intimacy and privacy of the chapel. It serves no real vital function other than to impress. As so often happens when a small entity is swallowed up by a larger one, it becomes their way of improvement without actually surveying the needs of the smaller unit. Frick’s once family feeling of staff and customer has decreased and much was lost. But because of the central core of workers and the community, the human touch remains.

Maps Versus GPS

When I was growing up our family depended on maps to help us get to where we were going. I can remember as we drew close to our visit with relatives we would either follow directions that they’d given us or drive through the town searching for the correct street address, then cruising up and down that street looking at house numbers. Once when we visited my uncle Nicky and Ina Nicholson in Ohio, the directions read, “After you leave Millersport, drive about 2 miles until you top a small hill.”

We’d gone about 5 miles before Dad turned the car around and headed back toward town. When we came to a slight rise in the road, Dad decided that Ohio was so flat this was what Uncle Nicky meant by a hill. What we in Pennsylvania thought of as a road swell, he considered a hill.

One of the hardest parts of reading the paper map was trying to spread it out in the car at night and actually reading it. There was never enough light from the overhead which reflected on the inner side of the windshield and made it difficult for the driver to see the road. It was also awkward using a flashlight. Another inconvenience of using a map was trying to refold it; most of the times it never seemed to go back in the same position.

Modern technology has made most maps obsolete. Drivers today will never know the joy of driving one handedly and trying to hold the map at the same time. It was every bit as dangerous as texting on the cell phone and driving today. There are also aps on the phones that handle the functions of the Tom Tom or Garmin GPS devices. All these little gizmos are be a great asset at finding the correct address. There is less cruising to look for the street or the house number, the voice tells the driver when he or she has arrived.

For the most part this is great for urban areas, but when the driver heads out of the city and into the country, the GPS may send him or her down a muddy, potholed cow path. These off the beaten paths are more easily traversed by a four wheel drive truck or SUV. Some of them are not for the fainthearted, but there are those who are fool hearted enough to try. An example of this was the first time my computer repairman made a visit and complained about the muddy washboard road he’d driven on.

Maps versus GPS, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 

Where There’s a Will…

Soon, I want to buy a newer vehicle soon and will need the title to my old one. Thinking I knew where it was on my desk, I wasn’t too worried. But when I tried to put my hands on it I couldn’t find it. I’d put it away for safe keeping. Other papers were stacked in baskets, but not the title. Thus began the quest for the safe spot where I placed it. There were several days of fruitless searches as I emptied drawers holding or once held documents. I revisited and sorted and shuffled the old bills, tax forms, and receipts; thinking surely this was where it was and I’d just overlooked it. I was fishing in a dry well and moved the search upstairs to my writing office, that is to say one of the kid’s bedrooms that I claimed to keep my computer and unfinished scripts.

I really rolled up my sleeves to sort through myriad of brochures collected on travel trips. I found nearly fifty new postcards and other memorabilia. I threw out repeat copies of stories that found their ways into published books. I have a large cardboard egg box in the office closet where I toss bills after I’ve paid them. Maybe the title had accidentally ended up in there? But I found nothing of importance. I have two small filing cabinets. After reviewing, sorting, and tossing away unnecessary things I’d stored inside, I was no closer to finding the elusive paper. My brain refused to share the title’s whereabouts. At the same time, I was also looking for my Print Shop disc. No luck on either.

My daughter Amanda Yoder told me to calm down. I’ll be up on Saturday to help and if we can’t find it, I’ll help you send for a duplicate. True to her word, Saturday came and the hunt continued with her revisiting many of the places I’d already looked. I’m not quite a hoarder, because I do throw things away, but I do keep more things than I really should.

So to make a short story long, we sat down for a break and Amanda opened up a small fire safe that no longer locks because the key has been lost. It had been my mother-in-law’s. It protected birth certificates, military papers, and other family documents. I’d gone through it before and not found the title. One of the things I had added to the contents was my birth certificate and my will.

I knew they were inside. I’d already gone through those papers. While we were sitting, Amanda’s curiosity got the better of her and she decided to pull my will from its protective sleeve and read it. Not only was my last will and testament inside, but so was the title for my car. I’m still looking for the print Shop CD.