Getting to Know You

Further excerpts from my hospital journal...

Note: The names used in my journal are not the true names of the individuals.

November 9, 1957:

I've been chuckling all morning over the latest anecdote concerning Mr. Hamilton...he is the darndest character! The other day one of the girls took his dinner tray in to his room and found him in the wrong bed. She asked him what he was doing there and this is what he replied:

"You know, those girls took me down to the solarium this morning and they haven't brought me back yet"!

He is like a little pack rat about collecting things and the girls have to ransack his closet, bed, and nightstand every few days. One time he went around swiping combs from all the rooms. Then he found a roll of toilet paper and started wrapping all is loot in it...combs and all! Last night Mrs. Southley went in and explored his closet. She found a whole batch of sputum cups up on the shelf. When she turned around and confronted him with them, he opened his blue eyes and said innocently, "My, I'm glad you found those! I've been wondering where they were!". Later she went in just in time to stop him from pouring a whole chamber pot full of water over Mr. Duran! Still later, she went in to investigate a suspicious odor coming from his room. His bed was a mess of bowel movement, and so was he from head to toe. Of course she was furious, but she couldn't help laughing 'cause there he stood by Mr. Meyerbier's bed, saying "Move over! Do you think you own the whole bed?".

I have a lot of fun chinning with these old ladies...we kid back and forth, and I like to think maybe I make this place just a little bit brighter with some of the nonsense I come up with. The nurses all congregate in here to talk, saying it's the only room in the place where there's someone who can talk sense! This morning I had them in hysterics with my "Thought for the Day" which came to me during the night, so I wrote it on a scrap on paper and propped it up on my nightstand:

I decided to title it "Reflections of a Woman Driver"...seems apropos!

Last night and this morning I have written about sixteen notes to various and sundry people for assorted reasons. I feel so virtuous! I can't decide whether or not I should write a note to Charley Millhouse, alias "Props", to thank him for the two anonymous checks. Eugene told me that Charley had sent them, but threatened to strangle me if I let Charley know he had told me. I think I'll let it ride for now. Sometime when I get a chance I'll tell Charley thanks in person.

Mrs. Lorris just wandered in and asked if we girls were going to Sunday School! I told her I thought I'd skip it this morning... I didn't feel like going. So now she's sitting in the chair nodding her head and carrying on a conversation of sorts with Mrs. Stein, my room-mate.

I didn't write anything in this while Mrs. Shuler was in here. She was the nicest thing. When I finally couldn't stand Mrs. Ingersoll any longer, they moved me across the hall with Mrs. Shuler and Mrs. Stein. The latter went home a few days later, and Mrs. Shuler and I get along famously. She is eighty-one and has a marvelous sense of humor. We had more fun, and I surely hated to see her go home last Saturday. But Mrs. Stein came back on Thursday, so she and I are room-mates again.

November 10, 1957:

Thought for the day

"Did You Ring"?:

My new philosophy of "let's sit back and relax and let the earth spin on its axis without us for a while" seems to be paying off. I've had a very pleasant day today, reading, writing verses and visiting with all the nurses. I have moments when I wish with all my heart that someone would come walking through the door, take my hand and say "Don't fret any more, little girl, I've come to take care of you". Rather than take this thought seriously, I treat it like a hilarious pipe dream and imagine all sorts of people into the role of rescuer! Most of them seem to be men...I suppose that carries some obscure Freudian significance! In my more rational moments it's my brother, appeared from nowhere, all tanned and healthy and prosperous looking. Getting a bit more unrealistic, it's Paul, and in wildest flights of fancy, it's my ex-husband! Yikes! How foolish to dream dreams like an adolescent...or perhaps not, for the human mind needs a little froth now and then, and what can compare to the sweetness of memories added to the thoughts of future fulfillment?