G.I. Joe And The Very Hard Day….

Today was a hard day. 

What should have been another Friday to enjoy seeing patients had turned sour.  Instead, various employees had waited for me in the hallway one at a time to reluctantly give me bad news.  Our new electronic medical record system mandated by ObamaCare had cost me $70,000 to implement but was not working as predicted.  Our building needed a new roof and the parking lot needed resurfacing.  An unhappy patient wanted a full refund for his glasses purchased a year ago and demanded to be seen today.  An insurance company had suddenly announced it would not pay for some of our patients to have surgery at the local surgery center, forcing our patients and us to use a more distant and less familiar center.  A post-op patient called and wanted to be seen because she was not doing as well as she thought she should the day after her surgery but could not come in for a visit until after hours so would I wait and see her before going home?  The air-conditioning was not working in our surgical suite.  My partners could not decide how to pay $32,000 more this year for our staff to get the same health care insurance, requiring an unscheduled meeting at noon.  I did not get lunch. 

Then, an irate patient made sure to point out in front of our full waiting area that she lived in Sharon Country Club and worked as a Airline Customer Service Rep as she criticized our excellent front office staff about their attitude.  Our hard-working and friendly staff didn’t deserve that treatment from this demanding, self-absorbed mom and the irony that it was coming from an airline employee (don’t they always make us happy when we fly?) hit everyone like a dirty, wet towel.  And, with all the distractions, I had predictably fallen far behind in my afternoon clinic.

Then, I saw Joe.

His chart told me his age was 93 but as I walked into his exam room feeling beaten and battered by my medical practice, he stood to greet me.  I had seen him many times before.  A familiar and pleasant smile creased his face as he extended his arm to shake my hand.  Scanning his chart to determine how best to treat his glaucoma, I refocused hard on my task, trying to be as efficient and accurate as possible and complete his care.

I asked him one of the many questions our new and burdensome electronic medical record system requires me to solicit from every patient, every visit. 

“Do you smoke?”

Interrupting my train of thought, he announced to me.  “I was in World War Two.”  His eyes twinkled.

Joe had a story and this was the day he was going to share it with me.  So, despite knowing this would make my waiting patients wait even longer, I reluctantly asked.

“What did you do over there?”

At the age of 22, Joe was flying over Hitler’s Germany in February, 1944.   He was part of a crew on a B-17 Flying Fortress on a mission over Berlin when his plane was hit, setting fire to one engine.  He and his fellow American soldiers had little time to decide what to do, but fearing the engine would explode and blow up the plane, they evacuated.

Joe jumped out of a burning airplane.  At 30,000 feet.

He went into a free fall, reaching terminal velocity of 200 mph before pulling his ripcord to deploy his parachute at 10,000 feet above a battlefield.

Joe descended into Nazi Germany, landing on the flat roof of a two story building in downtown Berlin.

Gathering his parachute, he heard a voice from the ground below calling out to him.  A German Officer was pointing a gun at him, directing him to slide down a gutter to the ground.

Joe was escorted at gunpoint to a holding center.  He was crammed into a cattle car with other American soldiers and taken by train to a prison camp in Poland.

He lived at that prison camp for ten months on meager rations with just the clothes on his back.

When the Russian Army broke through German lines from the east, he and the other prisoners were forced to walk 700 miles weaving their way west through war torn German towns and countryside.  In the winter.  It was 14 degrees.

Stumbling into the Battle of the Bulge, Joe and his fellow POWs became part of WWII's largest operation as Allied Forces overcame Hitler’s offensive into France.  There were 89,500 American casualties in that battle: 47,000 Americans were wounded and 19,000 Americans were killed.  But somehow, America won.  And Joe survived.

When an African-American Tank Battalion finally broke through German lines, Joe was freed.

His reward?  A can of Spam - and some cigarettes. 

“And, no, I don’t smoke.  Never did.”  Joe finally answered.

I sat captivated, amazed by each morsel of this buffet of living history served before me and I devoured every last bite.

And despite falling farther behind in my lousy day to listen to his incredible story, suddenly my day didn’t seem that hard.

When our lives seem challenging, it is comforting to know there are others we can rely on to give us a better perspective, to remind us of the powers of perseverance, faith and hope, and to lead the way.  

The next time I have a hard day, I'll think of Joe. 

The Yard Sale….

Back in the halcyon days before Velcro, FM radio and the riding lawnmower, my parents went to yard sales.  Every spring Saturday morning they would rise early before we kids got out of bed and join hundreds of other eager Charlotteans in the happy hunt for a bargain.  Today, somebody’s old junk would become someone else’s new treasure.

With satisfied smiles my parents would return delightedly displaying a used fish bowl bought for a dime, or a three-dollar real pushmower, or a ten-dollar old banjo.  And even more valuable items we would now be proud owners of, like a radio headphone or some ankle weights, would be placed in a position of honor on our breakfast table. The trophies collected much attention that day but eventually began collecting dust in our big ol’ basement for years to come.

But not today.  This Saturday Dad brought home the bargain of the century. 

“G’morning, everyone!  Look at what we got today.”

Peering up from our cereal bowls, we paused.

“I got a horse.  His name’s Dan.  Got a great deal on him.  He’s beautiful!”

Our mouths dropped, cereal and milk spilling out onto the table below. Out the door was a horse trailer.  And in it, a horse.

We crept to the door and quietly peeked in.  Shadows in the dimly lit trailer obscured our view.  The air was thick with the smell of wet hay.  We covered our noses and peered deeper into the darkness.  A deep, snorty breath broke the silence.  Then a shuffling sound and as Dan turned to look at us, we saw it immediately.  Dan was a one-eyed horse!  No wonder Dad got a deal, we thought.

While out visiting yard sales, my parents had seen Dan behind a fence in a small yard a few blocks from our house.  Eager to fill the vacant acre in our backyard left empty by the retirement of our previous two ponies, Dad approached the owners.  Leaning against an aging split rail fence that held a sign, “Horse For Sale”, cool in the summer shade of a stand of pine trees, Dad bargained expertly for his prize.  The owners, who were English and moving back to the old country, relayed Dan’s story.

Before Dan was blinded in one eye by a large pine cone that had freakishly fallen and irreversibly damaged his cornea, and before Dan had been gelded to, as his English owners politely and properly put it, temper his stallion-like behavior, Dan had been Tap Dancer.  Progeny of Northern Dancer.  The same Northern Dancer who in 1964 won the Kentucky Derby, the Queen’s Plate AND the Preakness Stakes.  The same Northern Dancer who despite his small stature set records on and off the track by winning 14 of his 18 races, commanding a $1 million dollar stud fee and siring 357 foals.  Of the 19 horses in last year's Kentucky Derby, 18 were related to Northern Dancer.  His semen, breeders say, was worth its weight in gold.  Dan’s father was a celebrity.  And a prolific stud.

Tap Dancer looked like his legendary ancestor.  He was a quarter horse, with short, stocky legs that made it impossible to believe he could outrun the larger horses.  Only 15 hands tall, brown and with white markings, he carried himself proudly, no doubt aware of his famous pedigree and still having a little stallion left in him.  But he had to turn his head to see.

Dad closed the deal, never sharing with us exactly what his latest yard sale prize cost him, but no doubt thrilled to get him.  And the Brits even threw in some feed and a saddle.  Tap Dancer was ours.

That summer, like every summer, it was my responsibility to cut grass.  I called our home “Grassland” because there was a lot of it.  To stay in shape, I would put on my red yard sale ankle weights held together by blue shoelaces because Velcro had not been invented yet.  And to break the monotony I would strap on my football helmet-sized yard sale headphones, extend the antennas, and listen to AM radio.  To find that weak AM signal I would tilt my head like Dan turning his head to see.  On rare days, with my head at just the right angle, I could pick up a soul music FM station, WGIV, “the black spot on your dial”, and really cut to the music. 

Then, dragging out the old pushmower I would commence the chore of cutting Grassland.  The backyard was so large that by the time I got it cut it was time to do the front yard again.  But Dan was a hungry grazer so with his help, I could now do the job in half the time.  Watching me push that mower over brilliant green grass and around piles of his horse droppings, my red ankle weights glowing, my head tilted and singing loudly to music from the BeeGees, Dan would stop munching the grass long enough to raise his roped neck from the ground and stare at me with his one eye.  He must have been fascinated.  And, I think, because of our shared interest in grass cutting, we bonded.

Saddling up a stallion, even one who has been castrated, can be an ordeal, but not near as challenging as riding one who can’t see.  Dan allowed me to brush and saddle him and eventually ride him.  A few times he would bolt, his DNA resurrected, running hard with me frantically hanging on like a baby baboon on his mother's back.  His muscles rippled as he snorted wildly.  He'd dodge trees and holes that would appear suddenly in his restricted vision until, getting tired of carrying someone who weighs twice that of a jockey, he would run broadside into a tree, knocking my leg loose and eventually me to the ground.  Then he would eat some more grass.

Because of Dan, I learned about being a stable hand and was able to convince my son when he was young that before I met his momma, I was a cowboy.  And years after Dan was gone and I had left for college, Dad bought a riding lawnmower.  No doubt he got a good deal on it at a yard sale.

March Madness….

The concert finished with an encore and the audience leaped to their feet.  With me was my college roommate and best friend, “Duck”, named because someone thought the way his feet pointed out made him waddle when he walked like a silly aquatic bird.  He had gotten us great seats.  Except for the big guy and his wife immediately in front of us, whose enthusiasm limited our views a bit, it was still a fantastic show.  When the house lights came on, we lingered to savor the moment and people-watch as the fans lined up to leave. 

Not surprisingly we recognized no one.  We were students at the University of North Carolina but the venue tonight was in Durham near Duke University.  Despite the intense rivalry between Duke and UNC, we had ventured out from the safety of Chapel Hill to experience a concert with plans to return quickly before we got hives or threw up or something worse from being so close to the Dookies.  Just by attending UNC we had a natural and deep distaste for them.  We hated Duke.

Gathering my things I noticed a wallet lying on the floor under the chair in front of me.  Must have been the big guy’s, I thought, but he was nowhere to be seen.  “Duck” opened the wallet and explored it.  Some cash, a few charge cards, a photo of his attractive daughter, and finally, an ID.  Tom Butters was the name and we recognized it.  Duke University’s Athletic Director.

Back in Blue Heaven, we returned to the familiar security of our dorm room with our hostage wallet.  Not wanting to invite bad karma by tossing it down the garbage chute or into the pool, we repressed our Duke animosity for a moment and did the right thing. 

Before the days of cell phones and the Internet, contacting people who were out of earshot could only be done by mail or using a shared telephone attached to a wall.  Opening the window and yelling just wouldn’t do it.  We made several information calls to an operator before we finally got Mr. Butter’s phone number.  Dialing his number and holding the receiver close between our faces, we stifled our snickers and tried not to make stupid comments as the coiled plastic cord bounced annoyingly between us.  A surprisingly nice voice answered which became elated as we told him the good news.  We had found his wallet.

Between gushing thank yous and exchanging information, Tom said he would send over one of his assistants (likely another Dookie) to retrieve his wallet.

“You boys did good.” he bellowed.  “I’ll have my assistant leave you something for your trouble.”

A reward!?!  Now we gushed gratefully as we fantasized about what it might be.  Cash?  Awesome!  A date with his daughter?  Unlikely.  Food?  Even better!  A couple of Domino’s pizzas would finish out the night just right.

We left his wallet safely with our front desk clerk as instructed and when we returned an hour later,  a plain white envelope was handed to us.  Inside were two Duke basketball tickets.  First game of the season.  Third row seats.  Center court.  At Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Surprise!  We love basketball, but mostly UNC basketball.  Most people would have been thrilled to spend an evening with the Cameron Crazies.  A generous gift for most but for us a trip back to Duke country to witness our hated enemy beat up a lesser opponent in their season opener would be like a day at the beach in a tropical storm.

 

Hurricane Earl, 2010

We made the best of it.  No, we didn’t sell the tickets.  Realizing we were going to be in very visible seats, and urged on by our fervent and fanatical friends, we dressed in the Duke opponent’s red colors and headed for Krzyzewskiville.  To root for ...Yugoslavia!

Our seats were so close we could smell the body odor radiating from the Yugo players’ unwashed uniforms. Or was that the Dookies?  Standing for every basket made by the Yugoslavia National Team, and vocally taunting the refs for every call made against the Reds, we exchanged obnoxious low fives (high fives weren’t invented yet) at every missed Blue Devil shot and cheered loudly for the Communists to beat Duke.   

In 1981, Duke went on to finish their season with 10 wins against an embarrassing 17 losses, ranking 218 out of 273 teams in the country and a sad sixth place finish in the ACC conference.  And, of course, no March Madness for them.

And UNC?  We won the ACC tournament and made it to the NCAA Championship game.

I like to think “Duck” and I had something to do with that.

Go Heels!  Anybody but Duke.

Redneck….

In the strictest sense of the word, Herman was a redneck.  He grew up poor in the rural South in a small house crowded with seven brothers and sisters. He was raised on a farm and never learned to read well because a formal education was not an option for him. But he learned to play music. The piano, the church organ, the guitar, and the fiddle helped him make each day his masterpiece.  He worked hard, raised a family, started a church and well into his 80's died, well liked and well loved.  He was one of my favorite uncles and I admired him so much.

The last time I saw Herman he was playing his new mandolin. I saw it leaning in the corner and asked him about it so he taught me a few chords, which I strummed clumsily, making an irritating noise.  I am educated but very musically challenged - and he knew it.  When I asked him "Can you play it?"  his typically humble response was "Maybe a little bit."  And buddy, he played it!!  With a toothy grin, he played it, happy to show me a thing or two and see the surprised look on my face. Two months later I got word that Herman had passed away.

"Redneck" is a term usually reserved for a rural poor white person of the Southern United States.  It appeared in 1893 as a description of the poor southern farmers of the Democratic Party who frequently showed up with their necks red from exposure to the sun to rally against rich men and their politics. North Carolina has a total population of 10 million people; as of the last census 72% of the population are white and 17.5% of the population are living under the poverty level.  That calculates out to a lot of rednecks.

Redneck is usually a derogatory word.  You’ve heard the jokes.  You are a redneck if…. the hood and one door are a different color from the rest of your car.  Or, you are a redneck if your momma has “ammo” on her Christmas list.  Or, you are a redneck if you own a home with wheels on it and several cars without one.  According to Miss South Carolina at the last Miss USA Pageant, 20 percent of those enjoying our neighboring state reside in mobile homes, because “that’s how we roll!!”.  North Carolina is not far behind.  Over thirteen percent of us live in mobile homes. Barely more than a tobacco spit from my home in the third wealthiest community in North Carolina sits a typical trailer park.  It looks real nice. 

Many of my family ancestors were poor white folks from North Carolina and Tennessee and Arkansas and Virginia.  I know them to be God-fearing, hard workers with conservative values and strong family ties who love country music and drive pickup trucks so, despite the bad jokes, I don’t take offense to the term redneck. And after all is said and done, they usually don't either. But use it prudently for several reasons - there are many of them, they have guns, and they would rebel if seriously provoked. They fought in the Revolutionary War, battled in the Civil War, and tussled with any other rascal who wanted to rastle ‘em. When their little redneck DNA, wearing blue jeans and boots with hair tied back in a red bandana, peeks out of my genetic makeup and shouts like Brad Paisley, “Let’s Get A Little Mud On The Tires”, I just smile and say “sure thing”.  It’s in my blood - and everyone knows you can’t deny the DNA.

We had us a few visitors from California last month, and took them on a Sunday tour. In a rented stretch utility van and with country music blaring, I hauled them on an excursion across the state line into South Carolina and back again to see the sights.  It was so cold chickens were begging to be fried.  I put on my heavy jeans, boots, a flannel shirt and my ball cap, and while Zac Brown sang “Ain’t In No Hurry”, we showed them where you could buy fireworks.  We showed them the ABC store where you could purchase liquor – any day except Sunday.  We flaunted where you could get cheap gas and fresh barbecue - at the same place.  We pointed out our Southern Baptist church with the charismatic evangelical preacher who had recently re-baptized me and my family by totally submerging us one by one in a tub of water one memorable Sunday morning.  

We then paraded by the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and after passing an ominous sign that read “Evacuation Route” – from what I am still wonderin' – we steered through horse country and a community called Indian Land. Through the leafless trees this time of year you could see the expansive properties with large homes surrounded by white plank fences and speckled with stables and horses and goats and cows and even a donkey.  We saw tractors.  We warned them they were fixing to see a real trailer park.  And they did, too.    

My daughter and her new movie star husband rode with us and I am sure were reminded of when we took her then Los Angeles boyfriend to Myrtle Beach. We shot off fireworks. We caught fireflies. We listened to thunderstorms roll in. We sat on my front step and drank ice cold beer and waved at the neighbors as they strolled by. We toured a Wings souvenir store and, shocked to see it, he bought a token coffee cup with the Confederate flag on it for his mom and a genuine Confederate cap to show his dad.  Coming home we followed the Cotton Trail in our truck to see the historic sites on large southern plantations surviving a time when cotton was king.

Years before, the redneck had peeked out again. On a Sunday morning picking up my wife from the airport I cranked up our dented pickup truck with the crack in the windshield and, excited about the day’s events, rolled down my windows and turned up the volume.  We were almost late to our son’s baccalaureate graduation ceremony at a big city church.  With the windows down and country music blaring, I sped in my pickup truck, drinking sweet tea and driving NASCAR fast to make the event as Toni gradually got naked in the front seat beside me while changing from her travel clothes into a respectable church dress. Naked. In a pickup truck. On a Sunday. On The Billy Graham Parkway.

Recalling my childhood back when a suburban lifestyle gradually replaced our modest rural heritage like a rising creek rinsing away the dust from unpaved roads, I remembered riding horses bareback and plowing vegetable gardens. Lord, that's where I come from! But in stages I became more like city folk.  Playing video games, driving a sports car, and getting through college replaced a simpler life as a country boy.  Then I witnessed my kids enjoying some redneck behavior like jumping from a train trestle into an Arkansas river, tubing down a homemade Georgia mudslide, and tying some boats together in the middle of a big ol’ Missouri lake to form a giant party raft. And loving country music festivals. And talking to their relatives with a sudden southern twang mysteriously appearing in their voices.  I chuckled to myself, muttering, “You can’t deny the DNA.”

Over a year after Herman died, I received a special call from his son, George.  Not knowing anything about the last time I had seen his father, George said  "We were going through some of Daddy's things and wanted to give you something of his to remember him by."  He added, "Daddy had always admired you for how hard you worked to finish your education. He would have wanted you to have this."  

Herman's mandolin. 

Life is like a good ol' country song, composed of multiple musical themes that rhythmically cycle in and out of our personal experience.  Energetic themes which jumpstart us to get to work, or to write, or to detail the truck.  Melancholy themes which encourage us to reminisce about family who have passed and remember days gone by.  And Redneck themes which, like Herman and his mandolin, give us heart and spirit and add character to our lives.

Rock Star….

Every time I look at an onion, I think of him.  He had this funny habit of sitting on his haunches, head up proudly, massive shoulders back, hairy chest thrown out like a proud peacock and the first time I saw him he was biting into a large raw onion like you or I might enjoy an apple.  His small brown eyes searched the horizon and his coarse black hair shielded his face from the sun. Autograph seekers crowded up like groupies at a rock concert, hoping to get a picture.  His smug expression rarely broke into a grin.  He walked with a brawny self-confidence that showed all what he thought about his position in life.  He owned this stage.  As I got closer to him, his menacing eyes avoided contact with mine. But I was captivated.  He was a rock star. And I could not wait to meet him.

Before beginning my job today, I had to visit with my department chairman.  His bearded assistant escorted me through a double-locked door marked ‘Employees Only’ and ‘Keep Out’ in red letters, and pointed down a long narrow hallway to an unassuming door at its end.  As the backstage door quietly shut, the crowd noise outside silenced.

“You will need to check in with him first thing every day.” his assistant said flatly, then added.  “Don’t worry about the smell.  You get used to it.”  

Handing me my security code and ID badge, he motioned me down the hallway.  

“Don’t look at his eyes.  He hates that.”  And he abruptly left.

I hadn’t noticed the smell until then.  A mixture of onions, ripe fruit and old wet towels tickled my palate like a trained sommelier.  My eyes reflexively teared up.  The door beckoned.  I studied the hallway.  Its cold cinder block wall on the right side rose fifteen feet to a brightly lit ceiling.  To the left was a complicated line of shiny rigid metal rods interlaced with strong wire leaving only two-inch spaces between and extending all the way from me to the door thirty feet away.  Puddles of water and wet spots dotted the concrete floor. Gripping my backpack a bit more tightly and taking a slow, deep breath, I held my nose and started down the corridor.

After two steps I could hear him breathing and my own breathing quickened.  The smell of onions intensified.  I felt his heart beating and sensed him studying me, knowing that at any minute we would finally meet.  I quickened my pace.  My shoes splashed along a puddle. 

“Don’t look.” I reminded myself.  “Don’t run.  Don’t slip.”

The cold metal bars shined to my left, and my right shoulder brushed the cinder block wall as the passage seemed to narrow.  The tiny hairs on my neck stood up.  My ears tingled.  I knew he was closer now.  My gait stiffened.  I could feel him.

The air thickened, like it gets as a big thunderstorm approaches.  The ground rumbled.  A deafening growl filled the hallway, echoing off the tight space and stunning my ears.  Still many steps from the door, but no turning back now, I hurried forward. Another primal roar sliced through the air, then a rush of black as I glimpsed him charging from behind the metal bars.  His body slammed against the shiny grill like a truck colliding with a train, but the bars held.  I felt his warm breath inches from my face and the smell of onions ripped through my nostrils.  

Opening my eyes just long enough to peek at him, I looked into his eyes.  Then, I ran. Thick droplets of spit dripped from my hair and face down my left ear as I fought to catch my breath.  I have to do this every day?

Responding to my frantic knock, my department chair opened his door.  

“So you met him?” he grinned cheerily.  “He doesn’t like males.”  

Too stunned to talk, I just stood there.

He handed me a towel.  “Next time you might want to cover up." 

He was a 400 pound silver back gorilla named Tomoka.  He was a rock star.  

And I met him.

**Tomoka was only the second gorilla born into captivity in the world, in 1961, about when I was born, at The Ape House @ The National Zoo, Washington, D.C.  After his severe arthritis was cured and his life saved by doctors there, Tomoka, a vegetarian,  looked like this in his prime, when I met him in 1982.

Making Lemonade….

Slumped in her exam chair, her eyes partially blocked by droopy brows and her face furrowed with wrinkles too many to count, Vivian locked her familiar gaze on mine.  This was her twentieth exam with me and she was closing in on her ninetieth birthday.  The weight of her chart was impressive; thick from decades of documentation for her growing list of medical problems, it told her story. 

She had been a dancer in her youth.  Eventually marrying and raising her children, she had lived to enjoy her grandchildren and even great grandchildren.  Recently she had buried her beloved husband.  Life had been fast and furious and full of miracles then, but now Vivian, her bones weak and her eyesight failing, did everything slowly.  With much effort she raised a crooked hand toward me and slowly wagging her aging index finger, she lifted her head a bit and gave me some advice.

“Do it while you’re young.” she warned with a rasp in her voice but a twinkle in her eyes.

This wasn’t the first time I had been given advice from my old folks. 

“Don’t work too hard,” one sage advised me. 

“Are you taking some time off?” other elders had quizzed.

“Getting old is not for sissies,” many, many had warned. 

This wise choir’s sad chorus was common - and relentless- so after years of hearing their refrain, I had listened. You hear that enough times, you just about have to. Heeding their stories of health failing, kids grown, family moved away, friends no longer living, and not feeling well enough to do much of anything, I felt a panic set in. 

“What are you doing in your spare time?” I began to ask my generation of patients searchingly.

“What spare time?” was their glum and almost universal response.

Blocking off time to make some memories became my mantra. Getting home early when I could, stretching a weekend into three days here or there, and planning some great experiences became a priority and helped our family create balance.

So today, I was ready for Vivian’s challenge.

On this perfect summer day, I had arranged for our two kids, ages 9 and 6, to set up a lemonade stand outside the door to my office.  Like two squirrels in a field of acorns, their excitement was palpable as we spent the evening before making gallons of the sweet thirst quencher that everyone loves as well as signs directing customers to a table full of cups and napkins.  We worked out with them how 50 cents a cup would be a fair and profitable charge. My wife and I filled a cooler with ice for them and instructed them in how to serve their customers without contaminating their drinks.  And we delivered the entire family project to my office entrance that morning for them to set up.

My office is busy.  Lots of patients and their families pass through those doors on any given day, so I knew business would be good for them.  But I felt guilty at the thought of my patients feeling trapped into buying something from my children.  So I secretly planted a large bowl of quarters at the checkout window with instructions to my staff to offer each of our patients the quarters as tokens to purchase lemonade as they left.

Thankful for the advice of Vivian and her comrades, and for their wisdom and courage inspiring me to play a bit harder, to hug a little longer, and to create as many magic moments as we can while we can, I directed her down the hallway.

“Vivian, when you leave today grab a couple of quarters at the checkout and 

buy some lemonade from my kids”,  I offered.  “My treat.”

With a quick and knowing grin, Vivian nodded her approval and disappeared unhurriedly down the hallway.

At the end of the day, I had two unsuspecting kids, as happy as tourists finding a deserted beach, gleefully splitting $37.50 for their day’s work.  And another memory to keep me warm when I get old.