A Visit to the Doctor

I was waiting in the hospital waiting room for what seemed like forever, although it had been about an hour. The specialist’s appointments were running late, as usual, but I listened to my latest detective novel on my MP3 player and waited for my name to be called. I was waiting for test results, although I knew they were positive there is always some anxiety when you reach a certain age. I describe age usually as after the warranty runs out at about 30, you always have a worry.

My name was called and I went into one of the smaller consulting rooms and waited, listening for the doctor. Medical staff was rushing around trying to see all of the patients at the end of the day, and get them in before it was time to leave. My meter had about half an hour on it when the doctor appeared, half an hour or so later.

Preceding the doctor a young man in a lab coat came in to say hello, and talk to me a bit. Being in my world, I assumed that this nice looking, tall young guy was a high school co-op student working in the summer, probably as a volunteer. I had seen another such young volunteer in a previous visit helping people find their way through a very large city hospital.

Therefore I was stunned when he said, putting out his waiting hand, “Hello Mr. Greenblatt, I’m Doctor …….., I’m the Urology Resident”!

I know when I have reached the certain age, and I am there!

Memories of Somone Else's Father, Thank God!

This is part of an email I received from an old friend I haven’t seen since 1977. He describes the father of another friend I haven’t been in touch with since 1966.

“His father, a man of exemplary reputation, once tried to get me to hawk fake driver's licenses for college students so they could drink. He took me down to the basement of his pool hall ….. to show me his printing press-- where he also had about a thousand stolen TV sets which he wanted me to sell to students for 50 bucks apiece. (I think television sets back then cost a couple hundred)

The father died of a heart attack in a phone booth at the Police Station, across the street from the pool hall. My brother went to the Shiva house the night of the funeral to conduct a service for the family and shortly after he left, six armed thugs held them at bay in the living room while they ransacked the house looking for money they believed the father had stashed.

I last saw the father was at the Hospital a couple weeks earlier when he was recuperating from a heart attack. He knew medicine better than the doctors, so after a week of recovery he decided he had had enough of the hospital and called a cab in the early morning hours and went home, where he recuperated for another few days, after which time,  against doctor's order, he went back to work.

It was maybe a week or so later he dropped dead in the phone booth.”

Early Morning Shower Time

My daughter was in the bathroom this morning as I came up the stairs to get ready for work. This is not unusual, and I decided to wait for her to finish and I would go in after her. I lay down on my bed and thought I’d take a five minute nap.
I heard a “pop” sound and the distinct noise of the shower working. Odd, I thought, why my daughter would be taking a shower now as she always takes her shower at night and I take one in the morning.
A few seconds later it hit me, I could never hear the shower that loudly from my bed! That shower noise was coming from our small half bath off of the bedroom, which has no shower!

I ran over and found Mt. Vesuvius erupting all over the small bathroom! Before considering the problems involved here, I instinctively reached down and shut off the water valve and stopped the shower gushing all over the walls and the floor. I ran to the linen closet and grabbed 8 or 9 towels and ran back to try and soak up as much water as I could.

The toilet ceased to be the concern and the floor on which I was sloshing became my focus.

After that was over, I put the used towels in a laundry basket and brought them downstairs where my distraught wife who probably thought I’d done something horrible, was waiting.

I went back upstairs to get ready when screams told me the ceiling in the living room was gushing water. We’ve had this experience twice before and we are able to try and deal with this one as long as we have towels and buckets. As well, I have to punch a hole or two in the ceiling to relieve the pressure and give it a few days to dry out before repairing it, we hope.

I left with the upstairs bathroom clean, the living room with towels and plastic buckets and a promise from our plumber to be there at around d 4:30p.m.

I don’t want to just tighten the nut that has probably come off, because there must be something else wrong as plumbing fixtures, not touched, don’t unscrew themselves in my life. This has not been changed or worked on, as far as I know, for the 28 years the house has stood. I would rather get a second opinion first!

The plumber appeared at 3:30 and reviewed the situation and declared the original nut as broken! It had ceased to function, given up the ghost, and providential as it may be, did it while I happened to be there.

He also replaced all the toilet insides as they seemed to be from the same 1983 installation.

He has recommended replacing the ceiling in the living room and dining room. I am seeking a second opinion.

Note: What were the odds that the nut would split while I was in the room? The chances were greater that it would have happened and rained down on us destroying ceilings and floors below and doing thousands of dollars in damages. I stopped the deluge after a thirty second to a minute time period and thus ended a tragic possibility.

Lost Child Returned

Yesterday as I went out to walk Max at about 5:00, I ran onto a nice young man on a bike with a small child. The guy asked me if I knew who this boy was as he had just found him wandering down the street. I had no idea, but said I’d look around as I walked the dog and see if I could find a searching family member wandering the streets. He had found the boy a block away wandering off the walking path on to a very busy street and he sort of said he lived down this way. The young man had already called the police and was waiting for help.

I walked Max a bit and found no one. I grew concerned myself and came back, put Max in the house and waited with them for the police.

We gathered a bit of a following as people came by and were equally concerned.

The boy was about 2 or 3 years old and spoke a bit, but probably not all in English. He was (we guessed) speaking Arabic, but we weren’t sure. He also had no shoes on so we knew he probably had wandered from a park or a home.

We waited, and considered that of all of the things one expects they may find on the street in their life; a child is not one of them.

After 30 minutes (this was not considered an emergency by the 911 operator) two police cars arrived. We drew a bigger crowd as onlookers considered something was happening. The police were lovely and worked well with the child and we (my wife and two daughters were part of the crowd now) knew they didn’t want to take the child in but simply wanted to find his home.

There had been no reported missing children as yet, so it was a mystery but we all figured he must have walked away and no one knew it as yet.

The people (including us) went home and the police took the boy. They walked him back the way he had come (we can watch from our kitchen window) and after a while the police returned empty handed. My wife went out to ask what had happened, and it seemed the boy was able, when walked back, to identify were he came from and the police were able to knock on doors in the neighbourhood and find his Grandmother, who was “watching” him.

The whole thing was frightening but the end was fantastic! We were all relieved, and the Grandmother, who ever she is and where ever she lives will probably watch a little harder the next time.

I had informed the young man on the bike that if the child's family were not found after 30 days, he was given the child to keep. He didn't believe me.

This was a very happy ending.

Help, my balls hurt and I can't get up....

It was the mid 80’s and I received a call from my middle son in the middle of the day. “Dad, I’ve twisted my balls!” This was a cry for help and the funniest thing I’d ever heard. I had no idea what was wrong and what he’d done but it was killing me!

I asked a few questions and the story unfolded. It seems he was playing King of the Hill in front of his high school with several other football players and assorted friends, and the idea was when you reached the top of the hill, you fought off all onslaughts so you could stay there, at any cost. (Perhaps not at the cost of your testicles but it hadn’t come up in their conversations.)

I immediately left work (or where ever I was) and got him and we went home. He was in pain and I called the doctor and made an immediate appointment, because as it turns out, if you in fact twist your testicles internally you only have a few hours before they die and have to be removed. This is not a good situation. His embarrassment went from a simple embarrassing moment to a serious problem.

The Doctor got an immediate appointment with a specialist (a ball doctor I presume) and off we went. The person at the desk was unfortunately also a student at the same high school as my son, and a very pretty young lady. My son went kind of mute when she asked what was wrong as he could not get up the courage needed to explain about his testicles and King of the Hill.

We went inside and the Doctor examined him and nothing had really been turned, so he had pain, took some Motrin or something, and went home, much relieved.

I was relieved as well, and appreciate my grandchildren even more than normally, because there was this time when I considered he may never have been able to reproduce, although at the time it  seemed more like a blessing!

Luxuries

I’m trying to remember luxuries that we thought of as kids. Items that existed already (not MP3 players etc.) that seemed to belong to the rich or at least to families of means. The list could be long but I’ll try my best.
Power windows, door locks, steering and brakes: If you’ve never driven a 50’s Olds or Buick without power steering you haven’t lived. Especially there was no experience like parking in a tight space. Sometimes people would ask for help parking because they couldn’t turn the wheel anymore.
Air conditioning in more than a window unit: This was huge, in fact I can’t remember anyone havionng more than one. This in a car was for millionaires only in the early days and an expensive item in a new car, as I remember, it was $1,000 itself when the car was $3,000 without it. Some less rich folks were able to get an aftermarket one from Pep Boys or where ever and it was less and took up the whole middle of the front seat floor, making your bench seat fit two.
Color TV: A black and white became standard by the mid 50’s as I remember, but a color one, whenever it came out, was very expensive and of course, not too good. Some shows came on in color, not all.
Renting Cars” I was reminded by an old friend in Detroit who was older than me that renting a car was a luxury for the wealthy traveler. In most cases, a vacation was usually somewhere you drove to, or took a bus or a train, but never “hiring” a car, this was reserved for the wealthy.
Eating out at restaurants:  While not a millionaire’s event, this was reserved for special occasions and certainly not several times a day with the kids. Also, if there was a dinner for kids in advance of the adults it was not by taking the kids out for dinner as it is often today.
Multiple Telephones: By the time I was a teenager, some girls had their own phones but it was rare. It was more possible to have an extension in a kid’s room, not a separate line. Most homes had a phone in the downstairs hall and that was it. Earlier, we had party lines as it was cheaper and you only had a few calls anyway.
Portable Radios: These were not millionaire’s items but fairly expensive and required two (at least mine did) very large and heavy batteries to use. This was way before the transistor type we think of as available “in the day”. Not an item you saw around very much.
45 Record Player in the car: This was a factory 45 item, seldom purchased and quite a luxury. It was placed in the glove compartment (used up the whole space) and had a tone arm that must have weighed 1-2 pounds. It was on springs and with this heavy tone arm resisted skipping, but didn’t work all that well. It was a luxury however, and in a parked car with a young lady must have been a winner except it had no changer, so you had only 2-3 minutes to make your moves before the record would have to be changed.
Swimming pools at home: Basically, this didn’t exist in my world. I saw one in a mid-town home in an old neighbourhood in Baltimore once, but it was not filled and didn’t work. I can’t remember anyone ever, in my middle income circle, having a pool. In fact, when I had one in 1978, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven although by then it was more normalized.

I think this post will need to grow as people let me know of other luxuries they remember .

Editorial Notes:

How great, Barbie posted her thoughts on dishwashers. I had forgotten all about them but they truly were a luxury!

Another was airplane flights! My father was 60 before he was on a plane. I was 28 and my son was about a year! This used to be a big luxury!

New Ones from Joel and Arthur:

Owning more than one car (a second car)

 Owning a Cadillac

Belonging to a country club

Living in the suburbs

Taking a trip such as Florida or California

Having an expensive Bar Mitzvah

 Owning a  second  (or vacation) home or a rental property,

Owning  stocks in addition to your bond-a-month plan

Any kind of boat,

Water skiing,

Snow skiing,

Anyone living in a home with a name, e.g., Greenbrier; was clearly of immense means.

The Goldstein's Cat

The Goldstein’s became our friends when we moved to Kansas City in 1974. I was there for a year working on a grant project for the Union of Independent Colleges of Art. We met and had fun with lots of people during that year, but the Goldstein’s were particularly close, and as luck would have it they moved to Ann Arbour, MI about a year before we moved to Detroit. This gave us years of continued connection.
The Goldstein’s had a cat in Ann Arbour who they named Arthur Greenblatt.

This morning I was explaining to my wife how I used to be very energetic, in my “youth”, but as I got elderly, this all seemed to go away. She reminded me of the Goldstein’s cat story.

I was visiting the Goldstein’s for the first time in Ann Arbour, and after we entered, I heard Anita (from a back room) calling, “Arthur Greenblatt, you fat lazy bastard, get out of there!”

I had no idea that was the name of their cat and was a bit concerned about my welcome.

The cat had general characteristics that they attributed to me. I guess I wasn’t as energetic (at 36) as I thought I was. My “cat like” reflexes must have been attributed to that cat.

He was a lovely, lazy fat cat and a wonder to behold!

Freaky Friday Syndrome

I know it’s an old movie and now we have “The Change Up” with the same theme, a body and/or mind changing possibility, where one person becomes another one. The magical event happens when you become your friend, your mother or anything else, and he or she becomes you. This is a fantasy, and one which I was concerned about last Sunday.

My wife and I had gone to Aberfoyle, Ontario for the weekly antique market event. It was extremely hot, and I was unhappy about walking around in the 90 degree+ heat with high humidity, but I did. I found a bottle of water for sale and hydrated. After a while I needed to use the washroom and we quickly found one. My wife told me she would wait for me in and around the area of the steps up to the washroom.

When I was finished, a few minutes later, I returned and my wife was gone. In her place was a local Hamilton artist, a woman of the same age and size as my wife and someone we both know. Aberfoyle is a far piece up the road from where we live, so running into someone we know would be possible but unlikely on such a hot day in the middle of the summer.

For a brief moment I considered the impossible. Could my wife have changed bodies with this woman? Could this be my wife? I sure hope not! This would not have been my fantasy! This was a bit scary!

OK, she is a nice person and if I had to spend the rest of my life with her it would not be a bad thing, but in the movie fantasy, the mind changes, the body remains the same. Here I had different person become my wife. I am sure she would not have wanted to spend her days with me either.

I called over to her, using her real name, and thankfully she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. My wife arrived after looking at some antiques a few feet away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I am sure she never considered what I had considered, as she just happened to run onto me and had no idea she had been standing exactly where my wife was standing a few minutes before.

Overheard at Dinner last night

After dinner and much to drink:

3 mothers of teen aged girls

Mother #1

“ Is your daughter doing much with boys? ”

Mother #2

“No, she’s not really into boys that much. She has lots of friends and some are boys but no boy in particular”

Mother #1

“Yea, the same with us. Not a boy thing either. It makes me happy; she’ll get there sooner or later”.

Mother #3

“I don’t know. Don’t you want your girls to know what sex is, I mean really good sex?”

The Jubilee

This is the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, Alberta. It has nothing to do with the story except the name but it's a place I've given out degrees and diplomas in and it brings back fond memeories and is a scarey place to stand the first time you see it.

In today’s email I received the following:

Hello Arthur:

I was hoping you would be a reference for me for the position I applied to as Assistant Director (attached) at the xxxxxxx covering for a maturity leave.

 I hope all is well with you.

 Cheers,

Xxxx

 OK, here it is. I couldn’t stop laughing! I know (as you probably do) what she meant, but I love Maturity Leave!

 This is a great idea. I wrote to her and explained that a maturity leave in this day and age is final, not a leave. However, maternity leave usually means is a yearlong job.

 But what a great idea! It relates to an older notion of a Jubilee Year, much like a sabbatical, a Jubilee Year was your 50^th year as a year off.

 It is written in the Torah, "You shall sanctify the 50th year and proclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants; it shall be the Jubilee year for you, you shall return each person to his ancestral heritage and you shall return each to his family. It shall be a Jubilee Year for you - the 50th year - you shall not sow, you shall not harvest its after-growth and you shall not pick what was set aside of it for yourself. For it is a Jubilee Year, it shall be holy to you; from the field you eat its crop." (Leviticus 25:10-13)

Basically, these verses indicate that the Jubilee requires all debts between Jews to be annulled. Also, any Jew that sold his or herself into slavery is released, whether they worked the amount of time they promised, or not.

 However, let us be more open with the concept and offer a Jubilee Year to all. Please feel free to thank me for it if it comes!